groups who lounge about them in no degree tend to diminish. Even the
little block-tin temple sacred to baked potatoes, surmounted by a
splendid design in variegated lamps, looks less gay than usual, and as to
the kidney-pie stand, its glory has quite departed. The candle in the
transparent lamp, manufactured of oil-paper, embellished with
'characters,' has been blown out fifty times, so the kidney-pie merchant,
tired with running backwards and forwards to the next wine-vaults, to get
a light, has given up the idea of illumination in despair, and the only
signs of his 'whereabout,' are the bright sparks, of which a long
irregular train is whirled down the street every time he opens his
portable oven to hand a hot kidney-pie to a customer.

Flat-fish, oyster, and fruit vendors linger hopelessly in the kennel, in
vain endeavouring to attract customers; and the ragged boys who usually
disport themselves about the streets, stand crouched in little knots in
some projecting doorway, or under the canvas blind of a cheesemonger's,
where great flaring gas-lights, unshaded by any glass, display huge piles
of blight red and pale yellow cheeses, mingled with little fivepenny dabs
of dingy bacon, various tubs of weekly Dorset, and cloudy rolls of 'best
fresh.'

Here they amuse themselves with theatrical converse, arising out of their
last half-price visit to the Victoria gallery, admire the terrific
combat, which is nightly encored, and expatiate on the inimitable manner
in which Bill Thompson can 'come the double monkey,' or go through the
mysterious involutions of a sailor's hornpipe.

It is nearly eleven o'clock, and the cold thin rain which has been
drizzling so long, is beginning to pour down in good earnest; the
baked-potato man has departed--the kidney-pie man has just walked away
with his warehouse on his arm--the cheesemonger has drawn in his blind,
and the boys have dispersed. The constant clicking of pattens on the
slippy and uneven pavement, and the rustling of umbrellas, as the wind
blows against the shop-windows, bear testimony to the inclemency of the
night; and the policeman, with his oilskin cape buttoned closely round
him, seems as he holds his hat on his head, and turns round to avoid the
gust of wind and rain which drives against him at the street-corner, to
be very far from congratulating himself on the prospect before him.

The little chandler's shop with the cracked bell behind the door, whose
melancholy