her to see to
the herrings, young 'un, and just you listen to me. You be done with
your kidding and listen to me. _You_ can tell me as much as I want to
know. Sharp young beggar!--you know what's good for you." An
intimidation of a possible _douceur_ perhaps?

Now Master Michael, though absolutely deficient in education--his class,
a sort of aristocracy of guttersnipes, was so in the pre-Board-School
fifties,--was as sharp as a razor already even in the days of Dave
Wardle's early accident, and had added a world of experience to his
stock in the last few months. He had, in fact, been seeing the
Metropolis, as an exponent or auxiliary of his father's vocation as a
costermonger; and had made himself extremely useful, said Mr. Rackstraw,
in the manner of speaking. Only the manner of speaking, strictly
reported, did not use the expression _extremely_, but another
one which we need not dwell upon except to make reference to its
inappropriateness. Mr. Rackstraw was not a man of many words, so he had
to fall back upon the same very often or hold his tongue: a course
uncongenial to him. This word was a _piece de resistance_--a kind of
sheet-anchor.

In the course of these last few months of active costermongery, of
transactions in early peas and new potatoes, spring-cabbage and ripe
strawberries, he had acquired not only an insight into commerce but
apparently an intimate knowledge of every street in London, and a very
fair acquaintance with its celebrities; meaning thereby its real
celebrities--its sportsmen, patrons of the Prize Ring, cricketers,
rowing-men, billiard-players, jockeys--what not? Its less important
representative men, statesmen, bishops, writers, artists, lawyers;
soldiers and sailors even, though here concession was rife, had to take
a second place. But there was one class--a class whose members may have
belonged to any one of these--of which Michael's experience was very
limited. It was the class of gaol-birds. This type, the most puzzling to
eyes that see it for the first time, the most unmistakable by those well
read in it, was the type that was now setting this juvenile coster's
wits to work upon its classification, on this May morning in Sapps
Court. Michael's previous record of him was an interrupted sight of his
face in the river-garden at Hammersmith, and a reference to his
felonious antecedents at the inquest. He was, by the time the
conversation assumed the interest due to a hint of emolument, able