Our Reporter: Is she your aunt or your cousin?
Fanny: Lor! No. She ain't nothink to me but a---- a----
Our Reporter (prompting, seeing that Fanny was in a difficulty): Friend?
Fanny (with a cunning shake of her head): Ketch me at it!
Fanny: I sells matches--two boxes a penny--and I falls asleep on purpose in front of the Nacheral Gallery.
Our Reporter: The National Gallery. In Trafalgar Square, where the fountains are?
Fanny: That's the place--where the little man without legs plays the accorgeon.
Our Reporter: Why do you fall asleep there?
Fanny (with a sad, wistful smile): That's mother's little game. She makes me.
Our Reporter: Mother's little game! Then you have a mother?
Fanny: At the pub round the corner, mostly--the Good Sir Mary Tun--till they turns her out.
Our Reporter: The Good Samaritan. But why does your mother make you fall asleep on purpose in front of the National Gallery?
Fanny: Don't yer see? It's a dodge. Mother gives me twelve boxes o' matches, and I've got to sell 'em. If I don't, I gits toko! Well, I don't always sell 'em, though I try ever so 'ard. Then I falls down on the pavement up agin the wall, or I sets down on the church steps oppersite, with the boxes o' matches in my 'and, and I goes to sleep. Pretends to, yer know; I'm wide awake all the time, I am. A lady and gent comin' from the theaytre, stops and looks at me. "Poor little thing!" _she_ ses. "Come along!" _he_ ses. Sometimes the lady won't come along, and she bends over, and puts 'er 'and on my shoulder. "Why don't yer go 'ome?" she ses. "I can't, mem," I ses, "till I've sold my matches." Then she gives me a copper, but don't take my matches; and other gents and ladies as stops to look gives me somethink--I've 'ad as much as a shillin' give me in a lump, more nor once. When they're gone, mother comes, and wrenches my 'and open, and takes the money, and ses, "Go to sleep agin you little warmint, or I'll break every bone in yer body!" Then I shuts my eyes, and the game's played all over agin.
Our Reporter: Is your mother near you all the while, Fanny, that she comes and takes the money from you?
Fanny: Lor! No! That would spoil the game. She's watchin' on the other side of Trafalgar Square. She knows 'er book, does mother! Sometimes I'm so tired that I falls asleep in real earnest, and then I ketches it--'ot!