Sometimes, walkin' the streets at night, I've ben that desperate I've made up my mind to win the horse or lose the saddle.You know what I mean, sir- to commit some big robbery.But when mornin' come, there was I, too weak from 'unger an' cold to 'arm a mouse.'
As their poor vitals warmed to the food, they began to expand and wax boastful, and to talk politics.I can only say that they talkedpolitics as well as the average middle-class man, and a great deal better than some of the middle-class men I have heard.What surprised me was the hold they had on the world, its geography and peoples, and on recent and contemporaneous history.As I say, they were not fools, these two men.They were merely old, and their children had undutifully failed to grow up and give them a place by the fire.
One last incident, as I bade them good-by on the corner, happy with a couple of shillings in their pockets and the certain prospect of a bed for the night.Lighting a cigarette, I was about to throw away the burning match when the Carter reached for it.I proffered him the box, but he said, 'Never mind, won't waste it, sir.' And while he lighted the cigarette I had given him, the Carpenter hurried with the filling of his pipe in order to have a go at the same match.
'It's wrong to waste,' said he.
'Yes,' I said, but I was thinking of the washboard ribs over which Ihad run my hand.