"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.'" [Sidenote: SNAKE SWALLOWING.]