Herbert Jenkins

“ The most persistent of these itinerants was a telegraph-girl, who seemed to have the whole morning before her. A perky, diminutive little creature with a scrap of fair hair tied behind with a pink ribbon, she stood drinking in the scene, her jaws moving continuously in the process of chewing gum. At length, as if to assure herself of the correctness of her own deductions, she turned to Bindle as he was returning to the house.
"Moving?" she enquired indifferently, nodding her head in the direction of the house.
"No, darling, we're doin' it to make our 'air grow. ”

“ Crane passed through it into the kitchen, as if compelled by sheer force of personality. Carefully closing the door, Bindle stood before it facing his victim.
"Now, look 'ere, sir," he said. "I met some queer coves in my time, coves wot wasn't over particular wot they did; but you're about the damnedest and dirtiest tyke I ever see without a muzzle." He paused, as if to give Mr. Crane an opportunity of resenting or denying the charge. As he did neither, Bindle continued:
"I ain't been brought up in a young ladies' school, an' I seen some pretty dirty things done by men an' women an' 'orses ”

“ III
"I shall miss you when you're gone, 'Uggles," said Bindle, "jest as I shall miss ole Wilkie's cough." He was seated on the tailboard of the trailer-pantechnicon between his two associates, Huggles and Wilkes—Huggles grinning vacuously, Wilkes coughing intermittently. "You ain't bad sorts as 'umpers [1] go; but I'd 'ave to be bloomin' drunk to see you two with wings and 'arps. Wot they're goin' to do in 'eaven with your cough, Wilkie, and your complexion, 'Uggles—well, it does me."
As he spoke the pantechnicon and trailer turned at a generous angle into the Vanstorn Road, Balham. ”

“ Bindle eagerly.
Bindle explained his interview with Mr. Crane in the kitchen, and how it had been interrupted.
"When they come out of the kitchen," he concluded, "they was like love-birds: jest like you an' me, Lizzie. Now, wot does a woman like 'er see in that bit o' kidney sooet dressed up like a nob? That's wot does me."
Mrs. Bindle drew in her lips with the air of a woman who knows, but will not tell.
"Now they're back in Balham as 'appy as 'appy. It was a pity," he added reminiscently, "that 'e didn't come into the back-yard. ”

“ Stevens'll be engineer, you can take Huggles and Wilkes. Send 'em back when you've loaded up. There'll be men at the other end to 'elp unload. Got it?"
"Wot a wonderful chap you are, Tawny, for explaining things"—Bindle gazed at him in mock admiration—"and yer language too, since you joined that Sunday school wot took the tint out of yer complexion. Wonderful face you got for peepin' round an 'arp."
"One o' these days you'll get a thick ear, Jo Bindle," said the foreman angrily. ”