toodle-oo

In one of the country gardens two gaily-dressed young coster girls are sitting and chatting with the cottager and his wife. They sit among the flowers and look for all the world like young London lasses who have come to the village to astonish the country folks with their town finery. When they rise and bid the old folks good-bye, and coming through the little wicket stand for a moment at the wooden palings to say “Toodle-oo” in the cheeriest of Cockney accents, we are at first astonished. For a moment my colleague and I had imagined we were in a rural hamlet and in the heart of green England.