rimless hat, and troubled his one
eye. The other eye, having met with an accident last week, he had
covered neatly with an oyster-shell, which was kept in its place by a
string at each side, fastened through a hole. He used no staff to help
him along, though his body was nearly bent double, so that his face was
constantly turned to the earth, like that of a four-footed creature. He
was ninety-seven years of age.

As these two patriarchal laborers approached the great dust-heap, a
discordant voice hallooed to them from the top of a broken wall. It was
meant as a greeting of the morning, and proceeded from little Jem
Clinker, a poor deformed lad, whose back had been broken when a child.
His nose and chin were much too large for the rest of his face, and he
had lost nearly all his teeth from premature decay. But he had an eye
gleaming with intelligence and life, and an expression at once patient
and hopeful. He had balanced his misshapen frame on the top of the old
wall, over which one shriveled leg dangled, as if by the weight of a
hob-nailed boot, that covered a foot large enough for a plowman.

In addition to his first morning's salutation of his two aged friends,
he now shouted out in a tone of triumph and self-gratulation, in which
he felt assured of their sympathy--"Two white skins, and a
tor'shell-un."

It may be requisite to state that little Jem Clinker belonged to the
dead-cat department of the dust-heap, and now announced that a prize of
three skins, in superior condition, had rewarded him for being first in
the field. He was enjoying a seat on the wall in order to recover
himself from the excitement of his good fortune.

At the base of the great dust-heap the two old people now met their
young friend--a sort of great-grandson by mutual adoption--and they at
once joined the party who had by this time assembled as usual, and were
already busy at their several occupations.

But besides all these, another individual, belonging to a very different
class, formed a part of the scene, though appearing only on its
outskirts. A canal ran along at the rear of the dust-heap, and on the
banks of its opposite side slowly wandered by--with hands clasped and
hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his hands--the
forlorn figure of a man in a very shabby great-coat, which had evidently
once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman. And to a gentleman
it still belonged--but in _what_ a position! A sch