So I says to his mother, 'I s'pose he's clever ?'--for dang it! thinks I, he must be clever to make up for being so plain-featured as all that.

'Benjy'-- she'd a-called him Benjamin after me--'Benjy's the cleverest child for his age that ever you see,' she says.

'Why,' says she, 'he'll pitch-to and make up a rhyme 'pon anything!' 'Can he so ?' I says, pulling a great crown-piece out of my pocket (not that I liked the cut of his jib, but the woman had been hinting about my being his godfather): 'Now, my lad, let's see if you're so gifted as your mother makes out.
There's a sojer now passin' the window.

Make a rhyme 'pon he, and you shall have the money.' What d'ye think that ghastly boy did?
'Aw, that's easy,' he says--" 'Sojer, sojer, Diddy, diddy, dodger!' "'Now hand me over the money,' he says.

I could have slapped his ear." Almost as he ended his simple story, the procession came to a halt: the strains of _Tom Bowling_ changed into noisy--and, on the part of the ladies, very unladylike--expostulations.