“I make regular 2l. a-week. Yesterday I made 7s. 3d., and it was rainy, so I couldn’t get out till late. At Brighton Regatta I and my mate made 5l. 10s. between us, and at Dover Regatta we made 8l. between us. We squandered 2l. 10s. at the lodging-house in one night, betting and tossing, and playing at cards. We always follows up the regatta. We made only 2l. 10s. at Hastings Regatta. You see we pick up on a Saturday night our 11s. a-piece, and on other days perhaps 5s. or 8s., according to the day.

“I used to go about with a mate who had a wooden leg. He was a beautiful dancer, for he made ’em all laugh. He’s a little chap, and only does the hornpipe, and he’s uncommon active, and knocks his leg against the railings, and makes the people grin. He was very successful at Brighton, because he was pitied.

“I’ve also been about with a school of tumblers. I used to do the dancing between the posturing and likes of that. I’ve learnt tumbling, and I was cricked for the purpose, to teach me. I couldn’t walk for three days. They put my legs round my neck, and then couldn’t get ’em back again. I was in that state, regular doubled up, for two hours, and thought I was done for. Some of my mates said, ‘There, you’ve been and spoiled that chap.’ It’s dreadful painful learning tumbling. When I was out with the posturers I used to play the drum and mouth-pipes; I had a old hat and coat on. Then when my turn come, I’d appear in my professional costume, and a young chap who was a fluter—not a whistler, like me,—would give a tune, and I’d go on the carpet and give the Irish jig or the hornpipe.

“There was four of us in the school, and we’d share a pound a-week each. We were down at Dover there, and put up at the Jolly Sailors. I left them there, and went alone on to the camp where the German Legion was—at Shorncliffe, that’s the place. I stopped there for three weeks, and did very well, taking my 7s. or 8s. a-day.

“After that I got tired of dancing, and thought I’d like a change, so I went out on a fishing-boat. They didn’t give me nothing a-week, only 4s. when we come home after two months, and your clothes, and victuals aboard. We first went fishing for plaice, and soles, and turbots, and we’d land them at Yarmouth, and they’d send them on to Lowestoft, and from there on to London. Then we went codding off the coast of Holland, for cod and haddock. It was just drawing on winter, and very cold. They set me with a line and I had to keep sawing it backwards and forwards till I felt a fish bite, then to hawl it up. One night I was a near froze, and suddenly I had two cods bite at once, and they nearly pulled me over, for they dart about like mad, and tug awful; so I said to the master, ‘I don’t like this work.’ But he answers, ‘You must like it the time you stops here.’ So I made up my mind to bolt the first time I got to shore. I only did it as a change, to see if I liked it. You’re right there, there ain’t no drinking on board.

“When you hawl up a cod they bound about the deck, and they’re as strong as a Scotch terrier dog. When we hold ’em down, we prick them under the fin, to let the wind out of them. It would choke them if we didn’t let it out, for it hisses as it comes off. It’s from dragging them up so quick out of fifteen-fathom water that gives ’em the wind. When they were pricked, we chucked them into the well in the hold, and let them swim about. We killed them when we got to Gravesend by hitting them on the head with tom-boys—the sticks we hauls the line through. After three or four blows they’re stunned, and the blood comes, and they’re killed.

“When I goes into the public-houses, part of my performance is to play the whistle up my nose. I don’t do it in the streets, because if I did there’d be thousands looking at me, and then the police would make a row. Last night I did it. I only pitched at one place, and did my night’s work right off. I took 4s. 3½d. and lots of beer in an hour, from the cabbies and the people and all. At last the police told me to move on. When I plays the whistle up my nose, I puts the end of it in my nostril, and blows down it. I can do that just as easy as with my mouth, only not as loud. I do it as a variety, first in my mouth, then in my nose, and then back again in my mouth. It makes the people laugh. I’ve got a cold now, so I can’t do it so well as at times, but I’ll let you see what it is like.”

He then inserted the wooden tongue of the whistle into his nostril, and blowing down it, began a hornpipe, which, although not so shrill as when he played it with the mouth, was still loud enough to be heard all over the house.