ernoon upon him, would he not
indeed have looked as miserable as the thief described?

And these two boys, having thus briefly compared notes, and exhibited to
one another their ill-gotten gains, curled themselves up and fell fast
asleep.

Dear reader, does it ever occur to your mind that there are hundreds of
such vagrants in this great city? Night after night they crowd under
railway arches and sheds, on doorsteps and in cellars. They have
neither home nor friend. To many of them the thieves' life is their
natural calling; they live as animals live, and hope only as animals
hope, and when they die, die as animals die; ignorant of God, ignorant
of good, ignorant of their own souls. Yet even for such as they, Christ
died, and the Spirit strives.

The pipe, and his friend, the string, that night had a long conversation
as their master lay asleep. They evidently thought I was asleep too,
for they made no effort to conceal their voices, and I consequently
heard every word.

It chiefly had reference to me, and was in the main satirical.

"Some coves is uncommon proud o' themselves, mate, ain't they?--
particular them as ain't much account after all?"

"You're right, mate. Do you hear, Turnip? you ain't much account;
you're on'y silver-plate, yer know, so you don't ought to be proud, you
don't!"

"What I say," continued the pipe, "is that coves as gives 'emselves
hairs above their stations is a miserable lot. What do _you_ think?"

"What don't I?" snuffled the string. "Do you hear, Turnip? you're a
miserable cove, you are. Why can't you be 'appy like me and my mate?
We don't give ourselves hairs; that's why we're 'appy."

"And, arter all," pursued the pipe, "that's the sort of coves as go
second-hand in the end. People 'ud think better on 'em if they didn't
think such a lot of theirselves; wouldn't they now, mate?"

"Wouldn't they just! What do you think of that, Turnip? You're on'y a
second-hand turnip, now, and that's all along of being stuck-up and
thinking such a lot of yourself! You won't go off for thirty bob, you
won't see!"

"Mate!" exclaimed the pipe, presently (after I had had leisure to
meditate on the foregoing philosophical dialogue), "mate, I'll give you
a riddle!"

"Go it!" said the mate.

"Why," asked the pipe, in a solemn voice, "is a second-hand pewter-
plate, stuck-up turnip, like a weskit that ain't paid for?"

"Do you hear, Turnip? Why are you like a weskit that ain't paid