“Well, I come o’ pretty mod’rately ’spectable folks, I do; and I ain’t goin’ to chum up with no thieves’ sons an’ as like as not thieves theirselves.  No thankyer.  Them Board Schools is a deal too mixed.  Thet’s ’ow I come to know about thet boy.  ’Is father ’ad a barrer, thet were what ’is father did for a livelihood, an’ ’is mother were up afore the beaks for poppin’ shirts what she’d took in to wash.  Well, I ain’t one to brag, but my father were a ’air-dresser’s assistant in Pimlico.  Pretty well up, too, ’e was.  The way ’e’d shive yer were sutthin’ to see.  Shivin’?  Yer couldn’t call it shivin’; it were gen’us, thet’s what it were.  Speccilation rooined ’im.  ’E stawted a small plice of ’is own, and bust.  Then ’e took to the turf, and bust agin.  Then Mother begun dress-mikin’ and there weren’t no dress-mikin’ to be ‘ad; so that bust.  We was unfortnit.  Heve’rythin’ as we touched bust.  But we never run no barrers, an’ we never was up afore no beaks, and if there weren’t such a thund’rin’ lot of us, I shouldn’t be doin’ this now.  Anywye, I respecs myself.  So I’m goin’ to start a new pitch an’ chawnce it.”

I inquired where the new pitch was to be.

“I’m swoppin’ with another boy (EDDUDS ‘is nime is) up fur end o’ this street.  ‘E ain’t so perticler as I am.  Clerks lives there mostly, an’ the biz ain’t so good as it was in my old plice.  Them clerks wears top-’ats, an’ consequently they daren’t smoke pipes.  They cawn’t afford to smoke cigars, and cigarettes is off’rin’ eyep’ny oices to a stawvin’ man.  So they don’t smoke at all, an’ don’t want no matches.  An’ I don’t blime ’em, mind yer.  Pussonally, I chews—­but if I smoked a pipe I wouldn’t do it with one o’ them ’ats on.  ’Cos why?  ’Cos I believes in a bit o’ style.  Not that I’m stuck-up as yer might say, but I don’t see no sense in lettin’ myself down.  If I’d liked I could ’a made it so ’ot fur thet newspiper boy that ’e’d ’ave ’ad to go.  I could ’a mopped up the puddles with ’im if I’d wanted.  But I wouldn’t.  I wouldn’t conterminate myself by so much as ‘avin’ a word with ’im.  I’d sooner leave—­even if I lose money on it.  My father were one for style too, afore ’is shop bust.  Thet’s ’ow it is, yer see.  Some goes up, and some goes down.  We’ve come down, but I draws the line somewheer fur all thet—­sure’s my name’s REGGERNALD.  An’ what do you think?”

I told him that I was rather inclined to think that he was an idiot, and tried to show him why he was an idiot.  But he would not be convinced.  Class prejudice was strong within ’im.

“Look ‘ere,” he said, “you may think I’m young to be a’visin’ o’ you, Sir.  But jest mark my words—­you cawn’ be too keerful what comp’ny yer gits familyer with.  I gits off ’ere.  All—­right, kinducter, yer needn’t stop.”

* * * * *

MORE EXCITEMENT IN PARIS.

[Illustration:  Portrait of English Tourist searched in Paris on suspicion of having a valuable Porcelain Vase concealed about his person.]