"Ah, then, it's the foine gentleman that ye are. It's easy to see the good dhrop is in ye. May be it's a likin' ye'd be taking to this sphlindid waistcoat; that's all the fashion now, and it's well it 'id look on yer fine figger. And don't ye want nothing at all to wear? And shure ye wouldn't be afther goin' naked like an omaudhaun in the streets and havin' the people shoutin' after ye?" "How much rent d'ye pay for this stall," said I to her, to get her off a topic by which she made her living. "Is't the durty rint ye mane? Well, it's enouff for the ould hole. I pay sixpence a day in advance, and the devil resave the penny I've turned yet, this blessed mornin." "Have you any one to support beside yourself?" "Well, indade, I have two childher, and its small comfort they are to me. One of thim, the eldest, is down wud scarlet favir, and the docthor says it tin to one if she'll ever recover." "You see sir," said the detective, "the people who rent stands from the men as own this place, they have to pay sixpence a day to 'old the stand. But those fellows as you see running around like lunatics, and a borin of every one, they pays two pence a day rents--cos why they 'ave no stands and honly walk habout with the clothes hon their harms." "Yis, and I wish you'd sind them to the divil, the haythens--they niver give an honest woman a chance to make a penny be hook or be crook, wud thim runnin all over the fair." "Halso, we never allows the 'awker as has no stands to stay in one place," said Dick Ralph, "cos hif we did, that would ruin the business of the people as pays rent for the stands. So we keeps them a movin' hon, and they doesn't like it, but we have got to do it, or else they would have rows hall the Sunday through with the nobs as keeps the stands. You see, the wery minute one of the 'awkers gets hopposite a stand, he collects a crowd and--now, there goes one now;" and he pointed to a fellow with a pair of trousers, who was bawling his goods out while a policeman had him by the neck shoving him along by main force. "Oh, some of these lads are precious 'ard coves, I tell you, to manage. Some of them will fight and curse at you like as hif they wor made of brass. But we never talks long to them, 'cos hif we did Rag Fair would be too much for the force." "How much a day do the hawkers make on an average?" I asked Ralph. "Well, I can't tell, because they are sich werry 'ardened liars. I axed one the werry last Sunday as I wos 'ere. Says I, 'old Benjamin, how much do you take in on a day's work on a haverage?'" "Oh! blesh your 'art," sez he, "some days I hash two pounds profit, and some days I makes a shillin' by 'ard vork."