k when there was a large demand for labour, for
the younger and stronger men were preferred when times were slack. He
had spent a week, now, on the benches of the Embankment; but things
looked brighter for next week, and he might possibly get in a few days'
work and have a bed in some doss-house. He had lived all his life in
London, save for five years, when, in 1878, he saw foreign service in
India.

Of course he would eat; so would the girl. Days like this were uncommon
hard on such as they, though the coppers were so busy poor folk could get
in more sleep. I awoke the girl, or woman, rather, for she was "Eyght
an' twenty, sir," and we started for a coffee-house.

"Wot a lot o' work puttin' up the lights," said the man at sight of some
building superbly illuminated. This was the keynote of his being. All
his fife he had worked, and the whole objective universe, as well as his
own soul, he could express in terms only of work. "Coronations is some
good," he went on. "They give work to men."

"But your belly is empty," I said.

"Yes," he answered. "I tried, but there wasn't any chawnce. My age is
against me. Wot do you work at? Seafarin' chap, eh? I knew it from yer
clothes."

"I know wot you are," said the girl, "an Eyetalian."

"No 'e ayn't," the man cried heatedly. "'E's a Yank, that's wot 'e is. I
know."

"Lord lumne, look a' that," she exclaimed, as we debauched upon the
Strand, choked with the roaring, reeling Coronation crowd, the men
bellowing and the girls singing in high throaty notes:-

"Oh! on Coronation D'y, on Coronation D'y,
We'll 'ave a spree, a jubilee, an' shout 'Ip, 'ip, 'ooray;
For we'll all be merry, drinkin' whisky, wine, and sherry,
We'll all be merry on Coronation D'y."

"'Ow dirty I am, bein' around the w'y I 'ave," the woman said, as she sat
down in a coffee-house, wiping the sleep and grime from the corners of
her eyes. "An' the sights I 'ave seen this d'y, an' I enjoyed it, though
it was lonesome by myself. An' the duchesses an' the lydies 'ad sich
gran' w'ite dresses. They was jest bu'ful, bu'ful."

"I'm Irish," she said, in answer to a question. "My nyme's Eyethorne."

"What?" I asked.

"Eyethorne, sir; Eyethorne."

"Spell it."

"H-a-y-t-h-o-r-n-e, Eyethorne.'

"Oh," I said, "Irish Cockney."

"Yes, sir, London-born."

She had lived happily at home till her father died, killed in an
accident, when she had found herself on the world. One b