"So I ses to 'er, I ses"--this from the snacksters--"I'm a respectable married woman, I ses. More'n you can say, you barefaced hussey, I ses--" Then a shower of curses, a shout, and a roar of laughter; and the conductor, making slow and laborious progress with the fares nearest him, turned his head. A man had jumped upon the footboard and a passenger's toes. A scuffle and a fight, and both had rolled off into the mire, and got left behind. "Ain't they fond o' one another?" cried a girl. "They're a-goin' for a walk together;" and there was a guffaw. "The silly bleeders'll be too late for the pubs," said a male voice; and there was another, for the general understanding was touched. Then--an effect of sympathy, perhaps--a scuffle broke out on the roof. But this disturbed not the insides. The conductor went on his plaguy task: to save time, he passed over the one or two that, asked now or not, seemed likely to pay at the journey's end. The snacking women resumed their talk, the choristers their singing; the rumble of the wheels was lost in a babel of vacant ribaldry; the enormous woman choked and gasped and snuggled lower down upon her neighbor's shoulder; and the shabby strumpet looked at the children. A man by the door vomited his liquor: whereat was more hilarity, and his neighbors, with many yaups, shoved further up the middle. But one of the little ones, standing before her mother, was pushed almost to falling; and the harlot, seeing her chance, snatched the child upon her knee. The child looked up, something in wonder, and smiled; and the woman leered as honestly as she might, saying a hoarse word or two. Presently the conflict overhead, waxing and waning to an accompaniment of angry shouts, afforded another brief diversion to those within, and something persuaded the standing passengers to shove toward the door. The child had fallen asleep in the street-walker's arms. "Jinny!" cried the mother, reaching forth and shaking her. "Jinny! wake up now--you mustn't go to sleep." And she pulled the little thing from her perch to where she had been standing. The bonnetless creature bent forward, and, in her curious voice (like that of one sick with shouting), "She can set on my knee, m'm, if she likes," she said; "she's tired." The mother busied herself with a jerky adjustment of the child's hat and shawl. "She mustn't go to sleep," was all she said, sharply, and without looking up. The hoarse woman bent further forward, with a propitiatory grin. "'Ow old is she?... I'd like to--give 'er a penny." The mother answered nothing; but drew the child close by the side of her knee, where a younger one was sitting, and looked steadily through the fore windows.