"The rats!--the rats! don't you see 'em coming out of the gullyholes,
atween the area railings--dozens and dozens?"
"No; I saw none."
"You lie; I hear their tails whisking; there's their shiny hats a
glistening, and every one on 'em with peelers' staves! Quick! quick! or
they'll have me to the station-house."
"Nonsense!" I said; "we are free men! What are the policemen to us?"
"You lie!" cried he, with a fearful oath, and a wrench at my arm which
almost threw me down. "Do you call a sweater's man a free man?"
"You a sweater's man?"
"Ay!" with another oath. "My men ran away--folks said I drank, too; but
here I am; and I, that sweated others, I'm sweated myself--and I'm a slave!
I'm a slave--a negro slave, I am, you aristocrat villain!"
"Mind me, Downes; if you will go quietly, I will go with you; but if you do
not let go of my arm, I give you in charge to the first policeman I meet."
"Oh, don't, don't!" whined the miserable wretch, as he almost fell on
his knees, gin-drinkers' tears running down his face, "or I shall be too
late.--And then, the rats'll get in at the roof, and up through the floor,
and eat 'em all up, and my work too--the grand new three-pound coat that
I've been stitching at this ten days, for the sum of one half-crown
sterling--and don't I wish I may see the money? Come on, quick; there
are the rats, close behind!" And he dashed across the broad roaring
thoroughfare of Bridge Street, and hurrying almost at a run down Tooley
Street, plunged into the wilderness of Bermondsey.
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