Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/22

 A woman, gripping a shawl about her shoulders, came furtively along from the posts, with a man walking in her tracks—a little unsteadily. He was not of the Jago, but a decent young workman, by his dress. The sight took Kiddo Cook's idle eye, and when the couple had passed, he said meditatively: "There's Billy Leary in luck agin; 'is missis do pick 'em up's' 'elp me. I'd carry the cosh meself if I'd got a woman like 'er."

Cosh-carrying was near to being the major industry of the Jago. The cosh was a foot length of iron rod, with a knob at one end and a hook (or a ring) at the other. The craftsman, carrying it in his coat sleeve, waited about dark staircase corners till his wife (married or not) brought in a well-drunken stranger; when, with a sudden blow behind the head, the stranger was happily coshed, and whatever was found on him, as he lay insensible, was the profit on the transaction. In the hands of