Here Comes the Toff Read Online Free PDF Page A

eleven years of a “life” sentence.
    He led her through dingy, narrow streets where women foregathered at the front doors and talked and shouted, laughed and swore, with babies at their breasts as often as not – or so it seemed to Anthea. They passed the great post-war blocks of flats, tatty with washing drying on balconies, bleak in their tarmac surrounds. They saw whole districts where most of the occupants were hard-working citizens, where every member of every family contributed something to the family exchequer, and yet – because of high prices, and hire-purchase commitments – failed to have quite enough.
    He showed her the Indian and Jamaican quarters, many still undeveloped, overgrown bombed lots, ruined houses, yet undemolished, notoriously used by the cheap prostitutes now run off the streets. He took her through an empty hovel which had once been a coiner’s den, and showed her the relics of a broken plaster cast from which half-crowns and florins had been made.
    She said very little, but she listened, and her eyes were bright with interest.
    She was astonished by one thing.
    Everywhere people seemed to know the Toff. He was smiled at, waved to, and talked to a dozen times. He had a pocketful of coppers and dispensed them among the smaller children, never making one jealous against another. There were, it was true, people who kept stoney-faced when he passed, others who swore: they were gentlemen, he assured her, who would gladly put a knife in his back.
    He pointed out a gross, pot-bellied man with a scar on his right cheek, whose hair was cropped close, and whose discoloured teeth showed in a snarl as they passed.
    Anthea, for the first time, looked perturbed.
    â€œUgh, what a brute! Who was he?”
    â€œThat’s Dinger,” said the Toff off-handedly. “He’s just come out after a sentence for bigamy.”
    â€œBigamy—that creature?”
    â€œYou haven’t seen his wives,” said the Toff, and then, as casually: “He handled dope, too, and that was where we quarrelled. I was never able to pin it on to him, but that scar on his cheek was from my knife. We had a scrap in the dark; he wore knuckle-dusters and used a razor.”
    Anthea shivered.
    â€œRolly—it’s terribly dangerous. Why do you?”
    â€œI don’t quite know,” said the Toff, and that was the whole truth. “My dear, I’m getting hungry, and so are you. Shall we eat?”
    She nodded, still thinking of Dinger, and the fight by night which Rollison had dismissed in a few words, but which had conjured up visions likely to keep her company at night.
    She had wanted to see the East End, and he was showing it to her. Her reactions were better than he had anticipated, and yet he wondered whether a whole day would not be too long.
    In a street near the Mile End Road he turned into a coffee shop. The benches – where half-a-dozen stevedores and several labourers and two slatternly women sat – were hard, with high backs separating one cubicle from the next. The bill of fare was chalked up on a slate hanging on the wall, thus:
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    Joint & 2 veg. 3/3d.
    Pudding – 5d. Tea – 6d.
    Steak & Kid. 3/6d.
    Sausage & Mash – (1) 1/11d. (2) 2/3d.
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    A girl in a dirty apron, who looked no more than fourteen, waited for their order. Her greasy auburn hair could have been a delight, but was hanging in neglected strands. Coarse, friendly shouts hailed her from the benches.
    â€œCome orn, Gert!”
    â€œWatcher waitin’ for—yer pension?”
    â€œNever mind, ’Andsome, gimme me sawsidge.”
    Anthea gave it up.
    â€œSteak and kidney pudding twice, with vegetables,” ordered Rollison to Gert, and the girl flounced off, returning more quickly than seemed possible with two steaming platefuls.
    â€œGood stuff,” said the Toff, his eyes gleaming. “Try it.”
    It was good stuff, although the suet roll which