He has quite an assortment of all the most popular fruits that are known in Chinese life. He has the arbutus, which at a rough glance appears very much like a strawberry, though it is really essentially different, for it has a large stone, and even when it is fully ripe it has a decidedly tart taste about it. He has these in several distinct forms, so as to meet the wishes of those who vary in their views as to how the fruit should be eaten. Some have been prepared with the slightest dash of sugar, so that the sour and sweet are so nicely adjusted that both can be distinctly perceived as it is slowly eaten by the purchaser. Some, again, have been so deluged with sugar, that the naturally acid flavour has almost vanished, and there remains but a remnant of the old nature left to modify the ultra-sweetness of the sugar. Others, again, have been dried in the sun until nearly all the juice has vanished. They have then been steeped in brine, and the combination of salt and tart that is the result has a fascination for some that one can hardly understand. All these are strung on thin slips of bamboo in fives, and the buyer holding these in his fingers can slip them off one by one into his mouth without soiling his fingers. Three or four cash is the usual price for this delicacy. In addition to these, there are plums from the country districts, and luscious-looking peaches and large fat mangoes all drenched in sugar, which has not only preserved them from decaying, but has also added a new flavour to each of them, which is specially attractive to those that favour any particular kind. Again, amongst the collection there is one fruit that always finds a ready market--the dwarf apples that are brought by the steamers and the huge merchant junks from Tientsin and Newchang in the far North of China. [Illustration: A PEDDLER. _To face p. 303._] When they are thoroughly ripe they are rosy cheeked, and resemble the Baldwins that come from America and are sold by the barrowmen in London and in different parts of England, only they are diminutive, for they are only about the fourth of the size of the ordinary English apple. These are crushed flat, and the whole are allowed to lie in sugar until they are entirely permeated with it. They are then strung on the bamboo sticks and are always the chief attractions that the "sweets and sours" man has to offer to the public. As they come from a great distance, and have been rendered more perishable by the long journey they have had to travel, they are a great deal dearer than the other local productions, and so it is only those who have a larger command of money that can afford to purchase them.