“Yes, commander, I took the business.  Such as it was.  It wasn’t much of a beat—­round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, Smiffeld, and there—­poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the kettles till they’re past mending.  Most of the tramping tinkers used to come and lodge at our place; that was the best part of my master’s earnings.  But they didn’t come to me.  I warn’t like him.  He could sing ’em a good song.  I couldn’t!  He could play ’em a tune on any sort of pot you please, so as it was iron or block tin.  I never could do nothing with a pot but mend it or bile it—­never had a note of music in me.  Besides, I was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me.”

“They were mighty particular.  You would pass muster in a crowd, Phil!” says the trooper with a pleasant smile.

“No, guv’ner,” returns Phil, shaking his head.  “No, I shouldn’t.  I was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and swallering the smoke, and what with being nat’rally unfort’nate in the way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich means, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older, almost whenever he was too far gone in drink—­which was almost always—­my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time.  As to since, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men was given to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at a gas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling at the firework business, I am ugly enough to be made a show on!”

Resigning himself to which condition with a perfectly satisfied manner, Phil begs the favour of another cup of coffee.  While drinking it, he says, “It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see you, commander.  You remember?”

“I remember, Phil.  You were walking along in the sun.”

“Crawling, guv’ner, again a wall—­”

“True, Phil—­shouldering your way on—­”

“In a night-cap!” exclaims Phil, excited.

“In a night-cap—­”

“And hobbling with a couple of sticks!” cries Phil, still more excited.

“With a couple of sticks.  When—­”

“When you stops, you know,” cries Phil, putting down his cup and saucer and hastily removing his plate from his knees, “and says to me, ‘What, comrade!  You have been in the wars!’ I didn’t say much to you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a limping bag of bones as I was.  But you says to me, says you, delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was like a glass of something hot, ’What accident have you met with?  You have been badly hurt.  What’s amiss, old boy?  Cheer up, and tell us about it!’ Cheer up!  I was cheered already!