ry and brutal--carnivora seeking their prey.

At the grocer's the light was reflected from the gay labels on tins and
packages and bottles, and the air was heavy with the confused odour of
tea, coffee and spices.

Cabbages, piled in heaps against the door-posts of the greengrocer's,
threw a rank smell of vegetables on the air; the fruit within, built in
pyramids for display, filled the nostrils with the fragrant, wholesome
scents of the orchard.

The buyers surged against the barricade of counters, shouting their
orders, contesting the ground inch by inch as they fought for the value
of a penny. And they emerged staggering under the weight of their
plunder, laden like ants with food for hungry mouths--the insatiable
maw of the people.

The push was gathered under the veranda at the corner of Cardigan
Street, smoking cigarettes and discussing the weightier matters of
life--horses and women. They were all young--from eighteen to
twenty-five--for the larrikin never grows old. They leaned against the
veranda posts, or squatted below the windows of the shop, which had
been to let for months.

Here they met nightly, as men meet at their club--a terror to the
neighbourhood. Their chief diversion was to guy the pedestrians,
leaping from insult to swift retaliation if one resented their foul
comments.

"Garn!" one was saying, "I tell yer some 'orses know more'n a man. I
remember old Joe Riley goin' inter the stable one day to a brown mare
as 'ad a derry on 'im 'cause 'e flogged 'er crool. Well, wot does she
do? She squeezes 'im up agin the side o' the stable, an' nearly
stiffens 'im afore 'e cud git out. My oath, she did!"

"That's nuthin' ter wot a mare as was runnin' leader in Daly's 'bus
used ter do," began another, stirred by that rivalry which makes
talkers magnify and invent to cap a story; but he stopped suddenly as
two girls approached.

One was short and fat, a nugget, with square, sullen features; the
other, thin as a rake, with a mass of red hair that fell to her waist
in a thick coil.

"'Ello, Ada, w'ere you goin'?" he inquired, with a facetious grin. "Cum
'ere, I want ter talk ter yer."

The fat girl stopped and laughed.

"Can't--I'm in a 'urry," she replied.

"Well, kin I cum wid yer?" he asked, with another grin.

"Not wi' that face, Chook," she answered, laughing.

"None o' yer lip, now, or I'll tell Jonah wot yer were doin' last
night," said Chook.

"W'ere is Joe?" asked the girl, sud