Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/158

142 with imprecations on your proud aspect, call you the most opprobrious name at the termination of each sentence, and wish they had you in the bilboes, on half allowance of water, &c. &c.

N.B. Tpon first catching the eye of one of these, put on a scowl, by drawing the eyebrows close together; one shake of the head and "No, not a stiver," finishes the business. If he press the matter farther, and you vociferate "no" and "never;" or some word inapplicable, in a strict sense, to the terms of the demand, it will bother his whack, and compel him to silence, from your "superior knowledge of stuff and nonsense." For example, he asks "your charity for God's sake," at each repetition you answer "can't, indeed!" "Never!" "No; I didn't." "Not in all my life!" "Could not think of it!" This mode is not taunting the dihtrtsses of others: it is nothing more or less, than queering the attempt of a bold beggar to impose upon your softness. The really distressed, claim a different sort of treatment, from this sort of queering, as it is called

The sneaking beggar, who is not really and unintentionally in distress, annoys you in the streets, more particularly when you are in company of females, whose feelings he endeavours to interest in his favour. His whine will follow