Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/319

 was rewarded by coal tickets, boots and the like. It was necessary to know just where and when to go and what to say, else the sole result might be loss of time. There was a church in Bethnal Green, for instance, which it would be foolish to enter before the end of the Litany, for then you were in good time to get your half-quarter hundredweight of coals; but at other places they might object to so late an appearance. Above all, one must know the ropes. There were several women in the Jago who made almost a living in this way alone. They were experts; they knew every fund, every meeting-house, all the comings and goings of the gullible; insomuch that they would take black umbrage at any unexpected difficulty in getting what they demanded. "Wy," one would say, "I 'ad to pitch sich a bleed'n' 'oly tale I earned it twice over." But these were the proficient, and proficiency in the trade was an outcome of