thing on the road, bar none. All right," he said, seeing my determination not to make a fresh start, "we will make our way to the lodging house: it is not far from here." We were soon comfortably settled in this place, and when, after having had a good tea, I was sitting smoking, and enjoying a newspaper, I felt more pleased than ashamed of what I had done; for I was going to bed with an easy stomach, and had coppers in my pocket for a good breakfast. Therefore, when a fellow lodger, a hawker, who was now taking an inventory of his wares, and who had probably seen and heard us singing that day, when following his own calling--when this man enquired of me if the town was good for gridlers, I answered him very pleasantly indeed, that there was nothing to complain of. After breakfast, the next morning, my companion of the preceding day proposed putting in a good eight hours' work, but I at once cut him short saying that such a business was not in my line. Now, several women were at this place; some of them were married, and some single, and most of them made and sold fancy work of embroidery. After I had spoken so decisively to my companion he had sat near to one of these women, at the other end of the kitchen. This woman, who seemed to be the wife of a knife and scissors grinder, had a little girl of about seven years of age. "Yes," said this woman, in answer to some question my companion had made, "you can have the kid all day; it's not the first time, by a long way, for Mary Ann to be used by gridlers, and she knows as well as you what's wanted of her." Not long after this remark my companion and the woman's child left the kitchen together. This I, subsequently, often saw done. Almost any woman, if she called herself a true traveller, would lend her child for this purpose; the woman or child, of course, deriving some part of the profit: so that when a man is seen with one or more children, it is not always to be granted that he is the father of them. These children are rarely subjected to ill usage--except that of enforced tramping--but are more often spoilt by indulgence, especially if they show early signs of that cunning which is needed for their future, and which is the boast of their parents. What a merry lot of beggars were assembled here; and how busy they all seemed to be, making articles for sale, and washing and mending their clothes! two or three of them sitting shirtless during the process of drying.