The woman eyed him more closely in the dim light. “I know ‘at voice . . .”
When she got a better look, she let out a disgusted screech and knocked his hand away. “ ‘Oo are you tryin’ t’fool, Morgan? Grabbin’ like it’s me thripenny bits you’d want, when it’s cobbler’s awl’s you’d rather be gropin’ after? Word’s out, ‘bout you, Morgan. ‘At Polly Nichols shot ‘er mouth good, when she were drunk, ‘at she did.” The woman shoved him away with a harsh, “Get ‘ome t’ yer lovin’ Mr. Eddy—if th’ toff’ll ‘ave you back, whoever he might be, unnatural sod!” She gave a short, ugly bark of laughter and stalked away into the night, muttering about wasting her time on beardless irons and finding a bloke with some honest sausage and mash to pay her doss money for the night.
The cash-poor—and recently infamous—young drunk reeled at her sharp shove and plowed straight into the damp wall, landing with a low grunt of dismayed surprise. He caught himself ineffectually there and crumpled gradually to the wet pavement. Morgan sat there for a moment, blinking back tears of misery and absently rubbing his upper arm and shoulder. For several moments, he considered seriously what he ought to do next. Sitting in muck on a wet pavement for the remainder of the night didn’t seem a particularly attractive notion. He hadn’t any place to go and no doss money of his own and he was very far, indeed, from Cleveland Street and the fancy West Side house where he’d once been popular with a certain class of rich toffs—and until tomorrow night, at least, when Eddy would finally bring him the promised money, he would have nothing to buy food, either.