ce for this pan or that fork. See how the bloaters
curl and twist as if trying to escape from the forks and the fire. See
how the sausages burst and splutter in their different pans. See how
stolidly the tough steaks brown, refusing either to splutter, yield fat,
or find gravy to assist in their own undoing.

Listen to the sizzling that pervades the place, acting as an orchestral
accompaniment to the chorus of human voices. Listen to it all, breathe
it all, let your noses and your ears take it all in. Then let your eyes
and your imagination have their turn before the pungency of rank tobacco
adds to the difficulty of seeing and breathing. And so we look, and we
find there are sixty human beings of both sexes and various ages in that
kitchen. Some of them we know, for have we not seen them in Cheapside,
St. Paul's Churchyard, or elsewhere acting as gutter merchants. Yonder
sit an old couple that we have seen selling matches or laces for many
years past! It is not a race day, and there being no "test match" or
exciting football match, a youth of sixteen who earns a precarious
living by selling papers in the streets sits beside them. To-day papers
are at a discount, so he has given up business for the day and sought
warmth and company in his favourite lodging-house.

Ah! there is our old friend, the street ventriloquist! You see the back
of his hand is painted in vivid colours to resemble the face of an old
woman. We know that he has a bundle that contains caps and bonnets,
dresses and skirts that will convert his hand and arm into a quaint
human figure. Many a droll story can he tell, for he has "padded the
hoof" from one end of England to the other; he knows every lodging-house
from Newcastle-on-Tyne to Plymouth. He is a graceless dog, fond of a
joke, a laugh and a story; he is honest enough and intelligent enough
for anything. But of regular life, discipline and work he will have
none. By and by, after the cooking is all done, he will want to give a
performance and take up a collection.

There are a couple, male and female, who tramp the country lanes; the
farm haystacks or outbuildings have been their resting-places during the
summer, but approaching winter has sent them back to London.

You see that they have got a tattered copy of Moody and Sankey's hymns,
which is their stock-in-trade. They have at different lodging-house
"services" picked up some slight knowledge of a limited number of tunes,
now they are trying