Bindle
Some Chapters in the Life of Joseph Bindle
Bindle is one of the immortals of humorous fiction. His mirth-provoking comments on life, his never-failing cheerfulness under the worst of hardships, his ingenious evasions of Mrs. Bindle's cold, sharp eye, his many laughable adventures, his much loved "little jokes", all these things have combined to make the little furniture remover unique. "Bindle is the greatest Cockney that has come into being through the medium of literature since Dickens wrote Pickwick Papers" said Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M. P. and thousands of readers have agreed with him. Bindle is a great creation--the creation of a great humorist. His adventures will move the most gloomy reader to hilarity.
consist of something stewed with his much-loved onions, when Mrs. Bindle's voice was heard from the kitchen with the time-worn question:
"Got a job?"
Hunger, and the smell of his favourite vegetable, made him a coward.
"'Ow jer know, Fairy?" he asked with crude facetiousness.
"What is it?" enquired Mrs. Bindle shrewdly as he entered the kitchen.
"Night watchman at a garridge," he lied glibly, and removed his coat preparatory to what he called a "rinse" at the sink. It always pleased Mrs. Bindle to see Bindle wash; even such a perfunctory effort as a "rinse" was a tribute to her efforts.
"When d'you start?" she asked suspiciously.
How persistent women were! thought Bindle.
"To-night at nine," he replied. Nothing mattered with that savoury smell in his nostrils.
Mrs. Bindle was pacified; but her emotions were confidential affairs between herself and "the Lord," and she consequently preserved the same unrelenting exterior.
"'Bout time, I shoul
