_Newspaper Vendor_. A pretty conceit, that Vendor! He has changed vastly since he dodged about the Strand, hawking the world’s news and exchanging shrill obscenities with the rebuke of policemen and cab-drivers. But the gutter-patois clings to him yet: and of nights you may see him forward, seated on an upturned bucket, wringing discords of unutterable melancholy from a mouth-organ. _Merchant Seaman—Golf Caddie_. He spat in the sand-box before making your tee, and looked the other way when you miss your drive, if he was as loyal as caddie as he is a sailor. _Errand Boy—Circus Artiste_. Of a surety he was the clown, this last. His inability to forget his early training has on more than one occasion introduced him to a cell and the bitter waters of affliction. But he is much in demand at sing-songs and during stand-easy time. Now here is one with a heavy black line ruled across his record on page 2, and in the margin appears the single letter "K" He is a recovered deserter. He "ran," after eight years’ service and stainless record. Was it some red-lipped, tousle-haired siren who lured him from the paths of rectitude? Did the galling monotony and austere discipline suddenly prove too much for him? Was it a meeting with a Yankee tar in some foreign grog-shop that tempted him with tales of a higher pay and greater independence? Hardly the latter, I think, because they caught him, and on page 4 of the tell-tale parchment appears the penalty—90 days’ Detention. Lastly: _Porter_. Where on earth did he shoulder trunks and bawl "By y’r leave"? Was it amid the echoing vastness of a London terminus, with its smoke and gloom? Or—and this I think the more probable—was it on some sleepy branch-line that he rang a bell or waved a flag, collected tickets, and clattered to and fro with fine effect in enormous hobnail boots? Then one fine day ... but imagination falters here, leaving us no nearer the reason why he exchanged his green corduroys for the jumper and collar. And if we asked him (which we cannot very well), I doubt if he could tell himself. They make a motley collection, these tinkers and tailors and candlestick-makers, but in time they filter through the same mould, and emerge, as a rule, vastly improved. You may sometimes encounter them, in railway stations or tram-cars, returning on leave to visit a home that has become no more than an amiable memory.