shall behold him, edging with equal strides
Along the kerb; hawking in either hand
Some artful nothing made of twine and tin,
Cardboard and foil and bits of rubber band:
Some penn'orth of wit-in-fact that, with a grin,
The careful City marvels at, and buys
For nurselings in the Suburbs to despise!

IV. BEEF-EATER

His beat lies knee-high through a dust of story--
A dust of terror and torture, grief and crime;
Ghosts that are _ENGLAND'S_ wonder, and shame, and glory
Throng where he walks, an antic of old time;
A sense of long immedicable tears
Were ever with him, could his ears but heed;
The stern _Hic Jacets_ of our bloodiest years
Are for his reading, had he eyes to read,
But here, where _CROOKBACK_ raged, and _CRANMER_ trimmed,
And _MORE_ and _STRAFFORD_ faced the axe's proving,
He shows that Crown the desperate Colonel nimmed,
Or simply keeps the Country Cousin moving,
Or stays such Cockney pencillers as would shame
The wall where some dead Queen hath traced her name.

V. SANDWICH-MAN

An ill March noon; the flagstones gray with dust;
An all-round east wind volleying straws and grit;
_ST. MARTIN'S STEPS_, where every venomous gust
Lingers to buffet, or sneap, the passing cit;
And in the gutter, squelching a rotten boot,
Draped in a wrap that, modish ten-year syne,
Partners, obscene with sweat and grease and soot,
A horrible hat, that once was just as fine;
The drunkard's mouth a-wash for something drinkable,
The drunkard's eye alert for casual _toppers_,
The drunkard's neck stooped to a lot scarce thinkable,
A living, crawling blazoning of Hot-Coppers,
He trails his mildews towards a Kingdom-Come
Compact of _sausage-and-mash_ and _two-o'-rum_!

VI. 'LIZA

_'LIZA'S old man_'s perhaps a little _shady_,
_'LIZA'S old woman_'s prone to _booze_ and cringe;
But _'LIZA_ deems herself _a perfect lady_,
And proves it in her feathers and her fringe.
For _'LIZA_ has a _bloke_ her heart to cheer,
With _pearlies_ and a _barrer_ and a _jack_,
So all the vegetables of the year
Are duly represented on her back.
Her boots are sacrifices to her hats,
Which knock you speechless--_like a load of bricks_!
Her summer velvets dazzle _WANSTEAD FLATS_,
And cost, at times, a good eighteen-and-six.
Withal, outside the gay and giddy whirl,
_'LIZA'S_ a stupid, straight, hard-working girl.

VII. 'LADY'

Time, the old humourist, has a trick to-day
Of moving landmarks and