his play by nearly a week.  And if his appetite were not keen, he could assuage it with a penny plum pudding; or he could take a middle course, making his dinner off a sausage and mashed potatoes.  The room was clean, well lighted, and airy; he could read his paper there, and forget his troubles in the observation of character.  He even made friends.  An old wizen creature, who had been a prize-fighter, told him of his triumphs.  If he hadn’t broke his hand on somebody’s nose he’d have been champion light-weight of England.  ‘And to think that I have come to this,’ he added emphatically.  ’Even them boys knock me about now, and ’alf a century ago I could ’ave cleared the bloomin’ place.’  There was a merry little waif from the circus who loved to come and sit with Hubert.  She had been a rider, she said, but had broken her leg on one occasion, and cut her head all open on another, and had ended by running away with some one who had deserted her.  ‘So here I am,’ she remarked, with a burst of laughter, ’talking to you.  Did you never hear of Dolly Dayrell?’ Hubert confessed that he had not.  ‘Why,’ she said, ’I thought every one had.’

About eight o’clock in the evening, the table near the stairs was generally occupied by flower-girls, dressed in dingy clothes, and brightly feathered hats.  They placed their empty baskets on the floor, and shouted at their companions—­men who sold newspapers, boot-laces, and cheap toys.  About nine the boys came in, the boys who used to push the old prize-fighter about, and Hubert soon began to perceive how representative they were of all vices—­gambling, theft, idleness, and cruelty were visible in their faces.  They were led by a Jew boy who sold penny jewellery at the corner of Oxford Street, and they generally made for the tables at the end of the room, for there, unless custom was slack indeed, they could defeat the vigilance of the serving-maid and play at nap at their ease.  The tray of penny jewellery was placed at the corner of a table, and a small boy set to watch over it.  His duty was also to shuffle his feet when the servant-maid approached, and a precious drubbing he got if he failed to shuffle them loud enough.  The ‘’ot un,’ as he was nicknamed, always had a pack of cards in his pocket, and to annex everything left on the tables he considered to be his privilege.  One day, when he was asked how he came by the fine carnation in his buttonhole, he said it was a present from Sally, neglecting to add that he had told the child to steal it from a basket which a flower-girl had just put down.

[Illustration:  “‘A dirty, hignominious lot, them boys is.’”]