or a snooze. The boys
knew this, and it was their amusement to keep him awake by pelting him with
egg-shells and other missiles. Hubert noticed that he had always with him a
red handkerchief full of some sort of loose rubbish, which the boys
gathered when it fell about the floor, or purloined from the handkerchief
when they judged that the owner was sufficiently fast asleep. Hubert now
saw that the handkerchief was filled with bits of coloured chalk, and
guessed that the man must be a pavement artist.

'A dirty, hignominious lot, them boys is,' said the artist, fixing his
pale, melancholy eyes on Hubert; 'bad manners, no eddication, and, above
all, no respect.'

'They are an unmannerly lot--that Jew boy especially. I don't think there's
a vice he hasn't got.'

The artist stared at Hubert a long time in silence. A thought seemed to be
stirring in his mind.

'I'm speaking, I can see, to a man of eddication. I'm a fust-rate judge of
character, though I be but a pavement artist; but a picture's none the less
a picture, no matter where it is drawn. That's true, ain't it?'

'Quite true. A horse is a horse, and an ass is an ass, no matter what
stable you put them into.'

The artist laughed a guttural laugh, and, fixing his pale blue porcelain
eyes on Hubert, he said--

'Yes; see I made no bloomin' error when I said you was a man of eddication.
A literary gent, I should think. In the reporting line, most like. Down in
the luck like myself. What was it--drink? Got the chuck?'

'No,' said Hubert, 'never touch it. Out of work.'

'No offence, master, we're all mortal, we is all weak, and in misfortune we
goes to it. It was them boys that drove me to it.'

'How was that?'

'They was always round my show; no getting rid of them, and their remarks
created a disturbance; the perlice said he wouldn't 'ave it, and when the
perlice won't 'ave it, what's a poor man to do? They are that hignorant.
But what's the use of talking of it, it only riles me.' The blue-eyed man
lay back in his seat, and his head sank on his chest. He looked as if he
were going to sleep again, but on Hubert's asking him to explain his
troubles, he leaned across the table.

'Well, I'll tell yer. Yer be an eddicated man, and I likes to talk to them
that 'as 'ad an eddication. Yer says, and werry truly, just now, that
changing the stable don't change an 'orse into a hass, or a hass into an
'orse. That is werry true, most true, none but a eddicated man cou