George Orwell - Collected Works

Mr. Tallboys (chanting): “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint! . . .”

Mrs. McElligot : “Ellen an’ me bin wanderin’ round de City dis two hours. Begod it’s like a bloody tomb wid dem great lamps glarin’ down on you an’ not a soul stirrin’ excep’ de flatties strollin’ two an’ two.”

Snouter : “Five past —— one and I ain’t ’ad a bite since dinner! Course it ’ad to ’appen to us on a —— night like this!”

Mr. Tallboys : “A drinking night I should have called it. But every man to his taste. (Chanting) ‘My strength is dried like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my gums!’ . . .”

Charlie : “Say, what you think? Nosy and me done a smash jest now. Nosy sees a tobacconist’s show-case full of them fancy boxes of Gold Flake, and ’e says, ‘By cripes I’m going to ’ave some of them fags if they give me a perishing stretch for it!’ ’e says. So ’e wraps ’is scarf round ’is ’and, and we waits till there’s a perishing great van passing as’ll drown the noise, and then Nosy lets fly—biff! We nipped a dozen packets of fags, and then I bet you didn’t see our a —— s for dust. And when we gets round the corner and opens them, there wasn’t no perishing fags inside! Perishing dummy boxes. I ’ad to laugh.”

Dorothy : “My knees are giving way. I can’t stand up much longer.”

Mrs. Bendigo : “Oh, the sod, the sod! To turn a woman out of doors on a night like bloody this! You wait’ll I get ’im drunk o’ Saturday night and ’e can’t ’it back. I’ll mash ’im to bloody shin of beef, I will. ’E’ll look like two pennorth of pieces after I’ve swiped ’im with the bloody flat-iron.”

Mrs. McElligot : “Here, make room’n let de kid sit down. Press up agen ole Daddy, dear. Put his arm round you. He’s chatty, but he’ll keep you warm.”

Ginger (double marking time): “Stamp your feet on the ground—only bleeding thing to do. Strike up a song, someone, and less all stamp our bleeding feet in time to it.”

Daddy (waking and emerging): “Wassat?” (Still half asleep, he lets his head fall back, with mouth open and Adam’s apple protruding from his withered throat like the blade of a tomahawk.)

Mrs. Bendigo : “There’s women what if they’d stood what I’ve stood, they’d ’ave put spirits of salts in ’is cup of bloody tea.”

Mr. Tallboys (beating an imaginary drum and singing): “Onward, heathen so-oldiers——”

Mrs. Wayne : “Well, reely now! If any of us’d ever of thought, in the dear old days when we used to sit round our own Silkstone coal fire, with the kettle on the hob and a nice dish of toasted crumpets from the baker’s over the way . . .” (The chattering of her teeth silences her.)

Charlie : “No perishing church trap now, matie. I’ll give y’a bit of smut—something as we can perishing dance to. You listen t’me.”

Mrs. McElligot : “Don’t you get talkin’ about crumpets, Missis. Me bloody belly’s rubbing ’agen me backbone already.”

(Charlie draws himself up, clears his throat, and in an enormous voice roars out a song entitled “Rollicking Bill the Sailor.” A laugh that is partly a shudder bursts from the people on the bench. They sing the song through again, with increasing volume of noise, stamping and clapping in time. Those sitting down, packed elbow to elbow, sway grotesquely from side to side, working their feet as though stamping on the pedals of a harmonium. Even Mrs. Wayne joins in after a moment, laughing in spite of herself. They are all laughing, though with chattering teeth. Mr. Tallboys marches up and down behind his vast swag belly, pretending to carry a banner or crozier in front of him. The night is now quite clear, and an icy wind comes shuddering at intervals through the Square. The stamping and clapping rise to a kind of frenzy as the people feel the deadly cold penetrate to their bones. Then the policeman is seen wandering into the Square from the eastern end, and the singing ceases abruptly.)

Charlie : “There! You can’t say as a bit of music don’t warm you up.”

Mrs. Bendigo : “This bloody wind! And I ain’t even got any drawers on, the bastard kicked me out in such a ’urry.”

Mrs. McElligot : “Well, glory be to Jesus, ’twon’t be long before dat dere church in de Gray’s Inn Road opens up for de winter. Dey gives you a roof over your head of a night, ’t any rate.”

The policeman : “Now then, now then ! D’you think this is the time of night to begin singing like a blooming bear garden? I shall have to send you back to your homes if you can’t keep quiet.”

Snouter (sotto voce): “You —— son of a ——!”

Ginger : “Yes—they lets you kip on the bleeding stone floor with three newspaper posters ’stead of blankets. Might as well be in the Square and ’ave done with it. God, I wish I was in the bleeding spike.”

Mrs. McElligot : “Still, you gets a cup of Horlicks an’ two slices. I bin glad to kip dere often enough.”

Mr. Tallboys (chanting): “I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord! . . .”

Dorothy (starting up): “Oh, this cold, this cold! I don’t know whether it’s worse when you’re sitting down or when you’re standing up. Oh, how can you all stand it? Surely you don’t have to do this every night of your lives?”

Mrs. Wayne : “You musn’t think, dearie, as there isn’t some of us wasn’t brought up respectable.”

Charlie (singing): “Cheer up, cully, you’ll soon be dead! Brrh! Perishing Jesus! Ain’t my fish-hooks blue!” (Double marks time and beats his arms against his sides.)

Dorothy : “Oh, but how can you stand it? How can you go on like this, night after night, year after year? It’s not possible that people can live so! It’s so absurd that one wouldn’t believe it if one didn’t know it was true. It’s impossible!”

Snouter : “—— possible if you ask me.”

Mr. Tallboys (stage curate-wise): “With God, all things are possible.”

(Dorothy sinks back on to the bench, her knees still being unsteady.)

Charlie : “Well, it’s jest on ’ar-parse one. Either we got to get moving, or else make a pyramid on that perishing bench. Unless we want to perishing turn up our toes. ’Oo’s for a little constitootional up to the Tower of London?”

Mrs. McElligot : ” ’Twon’t be me dat’ll walk another step to-night. Me bloody legs’ve given out on me.”

Ginger : “What-o for the pyramid! This is a bit too bleeding nine-day-old for me. Less scrum into that bench—beg pardon, Ma!”

Daddy (sleepily): “Wassa game? Can’t a man get a bit of kip but what you must come worriting ’im and shaking of ’im?”

Charlie : “That’s the stuff! Shove in! Shift yourself, Daddy, and make room for my little sit-me-down. Get one atop of each other. That’s right. Never mind the chats. Jam all together like pilchards in a perishing tin.”

Mrs. Wayne : “Here! I didn’t ask you to sit on my lap, young man!”

Ginger : “Sit on mine, then, mother—’sall the same. What-o! First bit of stuff I’ve ’ad my arm round since Easter.”

(They pile themselves in a monstrous shapeless clot, men and women clinging indiscriminately together, like a bunch of toads at spawning time. There is a writhing movement as the heap settles down, and a sour stench of clothes diffuses itself. Only Mr. Tallboys remains marching up and down.)