perambulating performers, who were giving an
entertainment to a crowd of bystanders. It was not a good programme.
First a young woman in rags, played on an old piano, with decent
precision, some extremely difficult variations of CHOPIN's _Funeral
March_. She was followed by a man who painted a portrait of a leading
statesman indifferently well. Then another man jumped into the river,
and made his way in the cold water with the ease of a fifth-rate
professional swimmer. Then a second young woman recited something
or other in German, with an atrocious English accent. And the whole
concluded with a lecture upon chemistry (given by a seedy-looking
old man), which was illustrated with some ambitious, but feeble
experiments.

On the balance the performance was a bore, and the public were rather
pleased than otherwise, when a police constable ordered the _troupe_
"to move on." The poor people gathered together their _impedimenta_
and prepared to obey the officer's behest. It was then that the
performers came face to face with the artisans. There was a cry of
recognition.

"Why, would you believe it!" exclaimed one of the workmen, "if it
isn't SALLY JONES, and TOMMY BROWN, and NORAH JENKINS, and HARRY
SMITH!"

The well-fed and the starving cordially greeted one another. Then
there were mutual explanations, and the old man who had lectured upon
chemistry had his say:--

"You want to know why we are all starving, and why we are so much
worse off than you, although we were educated at the same Board
School? I will tell you. It was because you very wisely made up your
minds to follow the occupations of your fathers. You became builders,
bakers, coal-heavers and paviors.

"Ah, we did that," sighed out the elderly workman, "because we were
too backward to attempt anything better. We were not clever people
like you! We couldn't play the piano, and paint and swim, and go
in for chemistry. We were not clever enough, and had to put up with
passing a very low standard."

"Thank your lucky stars it was so," exclaimed the chemist, with
tears in his eyes, "for your fate is happier than ours. We are all
fifth-rate, and can do nothing else. We have no chance against those
who have been born to this kind of thing, and we have forgotten how to
do your work. So we are starving, and--"

But here the old man was interrupted by a policeman, who ordered
all of them to move on. And on they moved. Half one way and half the
other.