Having bespoken his hearer's attention in this deliberate way, he became silent, and for a while sat brooding, his fingers still busy among the coins in his pocket.
"I don't rightly know how old I may be," he began at length, "but it's most like about fifty; we'll say fifty.

For fifty years I've lived in this world, and in all that time I can't remember not one single 'appy day, not one.

I never knowed neither father nor mother; I never knowed not a soul as belonged to me.

Friends I '_ave_ had; four of 'em; and their names was Brandy, Whisky, Rum, an' Gin.

But they've cost me a good deal, an' somehow they ain't quite what they used to be.