"Not they, sir," replied Mr. Weller, touching his hat. "I lodged in the same house vith a pieman once, sir, and a wery nice man he was--reg'lar clever chap too--made pies out o' anything, he could. 'What a number o' cats you keep, Mr. Brooks,' says I, when I'd got intimate with him. 'Ah,' says he, 'I do--a good many,' says he. 'You must be wery fond o' cats,' says I. 'Other people is,' says he, a winkin' at me; 'they an't in season till the winter though,' says he. 'Not in season!' says I. 'No,' says he, 'fruits is in, cats is out.' 'Why, what do you mean?' says I. 'Mean?' says he. 'That I'll never be a party to the combination o' the butchers, to keep up the prices o' meat,' says he. 'Mr. Weller,' says he, a squeezing my hand wery hard, and vispering in my ear--'don't mention this here agin--but it's the seasonin' that does it. They're all made o' them noble animals,' says he, a pointin' to a wery nice little tabby kitten, 'and I seasons 'em for beef-steaks, weal, or kidney, 'cordin to demand. And more than that,' says he, 'I can make a weal a beef-steak, or a beef-steak a kidney, or any one on 'em a mutton, at a minute's notice, just as the market changes, and appetites wary!" "He must have been a very ingenious young man, that, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, with a slight shudder. "Just was, sir," replied Mr. Weller, continuing his occupation of emptying the basket, "_and the pies was beautiful_." The "gravy" given with the meat-pies is poured out of an oil-can and consists of a little salt and water browned. A hole is made with the little finger in the top of the pie and the "gravy" poured in until the crust rises sufficiently to satisfy the young critical gourmand's taste. "The London piemen," says Mr. Henry Mayhew, "May be numbered at about forty in winter, and twice that number in summer." Calculating that there are only fifty plying their trade the year through, and their average earnings at 8s. a week, we find a street expenditure exceeding £1,040, and a street consumption of pies amounting to nearly three quarters of a million yearly. [Illustration: YOUNG LAMBS TO SELL. Young lambs to sell! young lambs to sell. If I'd as much money as I could tell, I'd not come here with young lambs to sell! Dolly and Molly, Richard and Nell, Buy my young lambs, and I'll use you well!] The engraving represents an old "London Crier," one William Liston, from a drawing for which he purposely _stood_ in 1826.