"Why, WILLIAM?"

"My name is REGGERNULD, Sir. Yer see, I'm movin' inter other premises,
as yer might say. I've give up my stand at yon corner." He jerked his
thumb in the direction of it.

"What's that for?"

"Oh--well--nothin'. Some of 'em think I'm a fool for doin' it. The
fac' was--I couldn't quite git on with my comp'ny there?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that other boy what come last Toosday, and started sellin'
pipers at my corner. You don't know 'oo 'e is, p'r'aps, nor 'oo I
am." I did not know, and I was very willing to get the story out of
REGINALD.

"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 newspip