[MANSON has helped him off with his coat, and now hands him the cassock.]

[Getting into it.] Don’t know oo you are, ole pal, but you’re a bit of orl right! . . .  Don’t I look a corf-drop?  ’Ere, where ye teking it to? . . .

[He watches MANSON suspiciously as he places his coat before the fire to dry.]

Bit ’andy, ain’t yer? . . .

So this is where ‘e lives!  A bloomin’ palace, as never I did see! . . .

[MANSON prepares a place for him at the table, and pours out a cup of tea, etc.]

Right you are, ole comride!  ‘E said breakfast, an’ breakfast it shall be, I don’t fink!  Blimey!  Sossingers!  Ain’t ’ad the taste of sossingers in my gizzard for I don’t know ’ow long!

[He sits and devours whilst MANSON breaks and hands him bread, waiting upon him.]

[Between bites.] Wouldn’t think as I was ’is brother, would yer—­not to look at me?  But strooth, I am; an’ wot’s more, ’e cawn’t deny it! . . . [He labours with a little joke.] There’s a lot o’ brothers knockin’ abaht as people don’t know on, eh what?  See wot I mean? [Suddenly serious.] Not as I’m one o’ them sort, mind yer:  my father married my mother honest, same as I married my little . . .

[After a moment’s reflection, he makes fresh onslaught upon the sausages.  Presently he looks up.]

‘Ere, ain’t you goin’ ter ‘av’ none? . . .  Cawn’t yer speak?

MANSON.  Yes.

ROBERT.  Well, why cawn’t yer arnser a bloke when ’e arsks yer civil?

MANSON.  You didn’t make it dear that you wanted to eat with me.

ROBERT.  Want a bit of ’eart in it, eh?

MANSON.  Yes, that’s all.

ROBERT [largely].  Sit dahn, ole pal!  Mek yourself at ’ome!

[MANSON obeys.]

See, wot was I tawkin’ abaht.  Just afore you turned narsty?

MANSON.  You were going to say something about—­your little girl’s mother.

[ROBERT’S cutlery bristles up like bayonets.]

ROBERT.  Look ‘ere, mate, don’t you come tryin’ it on with me!  I don’t care oo you are!

MANSON.  I know that.

ROBERT.  Then let me be, I tell yer!  You tek all the taste out o’ my sossingers.

MANSON.  I should like to hear about her, comrade.

ROBERT. You cawn’t bring ’er back.  She’s dead.

MANSON.  What was her name?

ROBERT.  Mary—­same as the little gel’s.

MANSON.  I wonder whether they are anything alike.

ROBERT.  That’s wot I come to see! . . .

She ’ad ’er mother’s nose when she was a biby—­and ’er eyes! 
Gorstrike, she was the very spit—­far as a biby could be! . . .

Swelp me Moses, if I find ’er anything like Bill’s ole geezer, I’ll cut ’er throat!

MANSON.  And if she’s like her mother?  What then?

ROBERT.  Why, then . . . there’s allus my own.  I nearly did it once.