can talk of the rest next Saturday. And what's your will, sir?"
said the widow with a stern expression to a youth who now stopped at her
stall.

He was about sixteen, with a lithe figure, and a handsome, faded,
impudent face. His long, loose, white trousers gave him height; he had
no waistcoat, but a pink silk handkerchief was twisted carelessly round
his neck, and fastened with a very large pin, which, whatever were
its materials, had unquestionably a very gorgeous appearance. A loose
frock-coat of a coarse white cloth, and fastened by one button round his
waist, completed his habiliments, with the addition of the covering to
his head, a high-crowned dark-brown hat, which relieved his complexion,
and heightened the effect of his mischievous blue eye.

"Well, you need not be so fierce, Mother Carey," said the youth with an
affected air of deprecation.

"Don't mother me," said the jolly widow with a kindling eye; "go to your
own mother, who is dying in a back cellar without a winder, while you've
got lodgings in a two pair."

"Dying; she's only drunk," said the youth.

"And if she is only drunk," rejoined Mrs Carey in a passion, "what makes
her drink but toil; working from five o'clock in the morning to seven
o'clock at night, and for the like of such as you."

"That's a good one," said the youth; "I should like to know what my
mother ever did for me, but give me treacle and laudanum when I was a
babby to stop my tongue and fill my stomach; by the token of which,
as my gal says, she stunted the growth of the prettiest figure in all
Mowbray." And here the youth drew himself up, and thrust his hands in
the side pockets of his pea-jacket.

"Well, I never," said Mrs Carey. "No; I never heard a thing like that!"

"What, not when you cut up the jackass and sold it for veal cutlets,
mother."

"Hold your tongue, Mr Imperence," said the widow. "It's very well known
you're no Christian, and who'll believe what you say?"

"It's very well known that I'm a man what pays his way," said the boy,
"and don't keep a huckster's stall to sell carrion by star-light; but
live in a two pair, if you please, and has a wife and family, or as
good."

"O! you aggravating imp!" exclaimed the widow in despair, unable to
wreak her vengeance on one who kept in a secure position, and whose
movements were as nimble as his words.

"Why, Madam Carey, what has Dandy Mick done to thee?" said a
good-humoured voice, it came from one of two fact