"WONT YOU TAKE SOMETHING?"

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on the bare ground, which was dry and hardened near the fire, while at a distance from its flame the ground was rather damp and the lodgers sat on broken stools or on ragged pieces of matting, broken pieces of willow ware, logs of wood, bundles of rags, or any other article, or articles, that were convertible into seats for the time being.

The room was lighted by four or five candles, which were stuck in glass bottles, the bottles being fastened to the joists which supported the berths in which the lodgers slept. The people nearest the fire had fragments of food in their hands and were evidently preparing for a grand midnight feast. Some of them were peeling potatoes, and one old fellow with rheumy eyes had a piece of bacon of five or six pounds weight between his crossed knees on a board, which he was cutting into small square lumps, and as he hacked a piece off he threw it at random into the large pot. A young girl was engaged in carving a huge cabbage-head, and her assistant was scraping carrots and parsnips. Every one

seemed interested about the pot, and every one seemed to have some contribution for the feast, which I found was a co-operative one.

"Purty Bill" bustled about and found two broken stools for myself and conductor, and placed them near the fire, saying in a hospitable way:

"Gent's, this ere night is werry wet, and you might as well dry yourselves. Sit up nearer the fire. Won't ye take somethink?" and he put his huge paws on the detectives knee in a friendly way. "This is agoin to be a topper of a meal tonight, and all of us will welcome ye gents to our 'umble board. So make yerselves at 'ome, and peck a bit when it's biled."

"Wot's the idea of getting up this cram at this time of the morning, Bill?" It's near two o'clock. Won't it interfere with yer lodgers' precious digestion?"

"Hinterfere with it? Wot, vith one of my lodgers? Rayther! No. Vy there's Kicking Billy as heats six blessed meals a day, and then he's all the time a lookin' for sangwiches and pigs trotters a-tween meals. Urt their digestion hindeed? Vy they 'av got stomax like them ere hanimals wot performs at Hastleys. You knows Slap-Up Peter. You used to be a stone swallower in the purfession," and the proprietor touched a man who was squatted on his haunches, smoking a dirty stump of clay pipe, with his foot. Slap-Up Peter drew the pipe out of his mouth, shook the ashes from it, dusted the venerable relic with a greasy red handkerchief, carefully placed it in his breeches pocket, and said:

"Vy don't ye keep yer big feet to yerself? Wot hanimals do you mean? Do you mean cammomiles?"

"Yes, them hanimals vith the 'umps on their hugly backs. You see, sir, Slap-Up Peter has had a good eddycation in his time, and he knows the names of the hanimals, 'cos he used to travel with the circus afore he went on the tramp to swallow stones and snakes."

"Peter," said the detective, "you must 'ave quite an 'istry. Could you tell us somethink about your past life, my boy?"

Slap-Up Peter had a melancholy face. The skin was tanned, the eyes large, black, and bulging, and the nose like a hawk's. His clothes were worn and greasy; his face was gaunt, and when he moved his body the bones seemed to creak and grate as if they had been joined together by metallic hinges. There was something mournful about the man-some queer story attached to him, I felt.

"Tell ye me 'istry, is it? Vell, I don't mind if I do; but them as hears my story mout give me somethink to drink first, for I ham werry dry. I lost my woice speaking on the Histablished Church bill tother night in Parlymint, and I've been 'oarse hever since."

"Well, take a drop, Peter," said Kicking Billy, a one-eyed and one-legged, and rascally looking fellow, who sat with his crutches between his knees, toasting his shins at the fire, and he handed a bottle to Slap-Up Peter, who took it without saying a word, and lifting it to his mouth, took a deep, deep draught without winking.

"Look at that fellow that they call Kicking Billy-the onelegged fellow, I mean," said the detective to me. "He's a returned burglar, that fellow, and has served fourteen years. This place is full of thieves. They are nearly all thieves, and this is a thieves feast," he whispered in my ear.

"My name is Peter Wilson, and I've been in the show business for sixteen years, come Christmas, man and boy. I'm thirty-eight years of age now, and they called me Slap-Up Peter when I fust began jumpin', as a hacrobat in the penny gaffs. Cos wy, I had a way of turnin' myself over a chair and coming back-handed on a somerset that used to take well, but now so many does it that the haudience don't mind it a bit. I jumped for four years, and wos counted pretty good in my line until I dislocated my wrist a doin' of the Pyramids of Hegypt, and then I vos laid hup and couldn't jump for six months and hover; so I thought I'd leave the bus'ness and happear in another character. I got married to—"

"More fool you," said Kicking Billy, sententiously, taking a drink.

“Well, hit didn't cost you nothing, no more than it did for the government to support you in Botany Bay for fourteen years. So you needn't hinterrupt me again."

"Go hon, Peter, and never mind him, its only 'is chaff." "Well, as I wos saying," continued Slap-Up Peter, "I got married, and maybe it was rayther foolish, for when we were spliced, Judy and I—she wos an Irish gal and a good worker

we went into our cash account and found that we had only one pun six shillings and height pence, not a blessed brown more. I said to Judy-she wor a good gal

“Judy, we can't keep 'ause on twenty-six shillings capital, that's shure. That's all our fortune in silver and gold, and it won't last long. So wot will we do?"

"Well, Peter,' said she, 'I didn't marry you for the dirty money; I married you cos' you were sich a good jumper and hacrobat, and I'll stick to you now when you can't jump any more;' for you see, Billy, my wrist was two years afore it got well."

"Let us pad the hoof together,' said Judy, and we'll do the best we can. Let us two work the southern counties and we'll get long French or Hitalyan names, and we'll pick up a shillin here and there.' Cos you see," said Peter, "Judy had been born and bred in Shoreditch, and she knew all the wandering play-actors and showmen, and she wor hup to all their affs. So I next came out as 'Signor Hokenfokos, the fiery salamander of Naples, and my wife, the Baroness Padila, who had to leave her country on account of the wiolent love vich the king's son would persist in making hup to her, and she had to leave all her property, to the amount of six millions, behind her.' This was a good lay and we made from three to eight shillings a day down in Devonshire and Cornwall, wherever we could get a crowd together. I used to swaller hot iron bars, pokers, and red hot coals, and my wife used to play the hurdy-gurdy while I was swallerin' the hot coals. I improved at this werry much in two years, and then, after I had vorked the hot coals out, Judy said to me one day:

"Peter, why don't you try and swaller snakes and swords? They are better than coals, and not so dangerous.'

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"Yes, but I don't know how,' I said, 'and I don't like snakes at all, they are so precious slimy.' You see sir, even then I didn' know what it was to get used to a thing. Well, I commenced to swallow knives at first, and I had to oil themthat's the trick you see-with sweet oil as good as I could find

SNAKE SWALLOWING.

67

at eighteen pence a pint, and I had to rub this on with a piece of shammy cloth. This oil lets the knife down easily, and when I wos well drilled there wos no danger at all-only I had to be sober. My swallow was hawful bad with the hirritation for two months, but I got over that; for when I felt my throat sore I took sugar and lemon juice, and gorgled my throat and that took the soreness away."

"Tell us about the snakes, Peter," said Purty Bill. "That's a good story, sir," to the author.

"Ah! that was the most unlikely thing I hever took to. It went aginst my stomach hawful to swaller the snakes at first, and I don't believe I'd ever have done it if it hadn't been for Judy, who said to me, when I kicked agin it,

"Wot difference does it make, Peter, whether you swallow red hot coals or snakes? The snakes has their stings all taken out, and its nothing more than swallowin' a sausage or pork saveloy.'"