It had played him a scurvy trick when it fashioned him into the thing he was, and it had played him scurvy tricks ever since.

What chance had he to be anything else than he was?
And as though answering my unspoken thought, he wailed: "I never 'ad no chance, not 'arf a chance! 'Oo was there to send me to school, or put tommy in my 'ungry belly, or wipe my bloody nose for me, w'en I was a kiddy?
'Oo ever did anything for me, heh?
'Oo, I s'y ?" "Never mind, Tommy," I said, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder.
"Cheer up.

It'll all come right in the end.

You've long years before you, and you can make anything you please of yourself." "It's a lie! a bloody lie!" he shouted in my face, flinging off the hand.
"It's a lie, and you know it.

I'm already myde, an' myde out of leavin's an' scraps.