ved chimney-sweepers,
rending the air with their piercing cries of "sweep," occasionally
relieved by a few hearty d---ns bestowed upon the servant, that she
did not come down, in order to let a diminutive urchin yet up the flue;
leaning against a post at the corner of the street was an overdone
Irishman, making a bargain with pug-nosed Peg, a sort of half-bred
pinafore cyprian, whose disappointments during the night induced her to
try at obtaining a morning customer. The Hibernian was relating the ill
usage he had been subjected to, and the necessity he had of making a
hasty retreat from the quarters he had taken up; while Bet Brill, on
her road to Billingsgate, was blowing him up for wearing odd boots, and
being a hod man--blowing a cloud sufficient to enliven and revive the
whole party.

~~251~~~ "Poor fellow," said Tom, "it would be a charity to pop him into
a rattler, and drive him home; and do you see, he is standing close to
a mud cart, the delicate drippings of which are gently replenishing his
otherwise empty pockets."

"Be aisy," said Pat Murphy the hodman, "arn't he an Irish jontleman,
arn't I a jontleman from Ireland; and arn't it lit and proper, and
right and just, as well as jontlemanly, that two jontlemen should go
together, so come along Peg, we'll just take a taste of the cratur,
drink success to the lads of Shellaly, and put the matter in its right
shape." With this pug-nosed Peg seized him by one arm, and the last
orator by the other, and in a short time they entered a sluicery in the
neighbourhood, which enclosed the party from view.

Turning from the group which they had been paying attention to, they
were suddenly attracted by a female purveyor for the stomach, who was
serving out her tea, coffee, and saloop, from a boiling cauldron, and
handing with due complaisance to her customers bread and butter, which
was as eagerly swallowed and devoured by two dustmen, who appeared to
relish their delicate meal with as much of appetite and gout, as the
pampered palate of a City alderman would a plate of turtle. The figure
of the lady, whose commodities were thus desirable and refreshing to the
hungry dust-collectors, struck Bob at the first view as having something
matronly and kind about it.

"These persons," said Tom, "are really useful in their vocation; and
while they provide a wholesome beverage for the industrious, are rather
deserving of approbation than censure or molestation: the latter,
howeve