They maken
'em seven an' eight cuts in, neaw an' then. There's so mony
'fancies' an' things i' these days; it makes my job good to nought
at o' for sich like chaps as me. When one gets sixty year owd, they
needen to go to schoo again neaw; they getten o'erta'en wi' so many
kerly-berlies o' one mak and another. Mon, owd folk at has to wortch
for a livin' cannot keep up wi' sich times as these,--nought o'th
sort." "Well, but how do you manage to live?" "Well, aw can hardly
tell,--aw'll be sunken iv aw can tell. It's very thin pikein'; but
very little does for me, an' aw've nought but mysel'. Yo see'n, aw
get a bit ov a job neaw an' then, an' a scrat amung th' rook, like
an owd hen. But aw'll tell yo one thing; aw'll not go up yon, iv aw
can help it,--aw'll not." ("Up yon" meant to the Board of
Guardians.) "Eh, now," said the woman of the house, "aw never see'd
sich a man as him i' my life. See yo, he'll sit an' clem fro mornin'
to neet afore he'll ax oather relief folk or onybody else for a
bite."
In the same street we called at a house where there was a tall, pale
old man, sitting sadly in an old arm-chair, by the fireside.
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