But with all these advantages of a light and profitable stock, there are two men who scorn to carry even these and will not on any account make any pretence at selling. These two men are the gridler and the downrighter. The former sings hymns in the streets, and he makes his living by the sound of his voice. Professional singers are paid according to the richness, sweetness, and compass of their voices, but the gridler's profit increases as his vocal powers decline. The more shaky and harsh his voice becomes, the greater his reward. With a tongue like a rasp he smoothes the roughness off hard hearts. With a voice like an old hen he ushers in the golden egg. With a base mixture of treble, contralto and bass, he produces good metal which falls from top story windows, or is thrown from front doors, to drop at his feet with the true ring. Then, if the voice be immaterial, where lies the art of gridling? No more or less than in the selection of hymns, which must be simple and pathetic and familiar to all. Let the gridler supply the words sufficiently to be understood, and the simple air with variations--a good gridler often misses parts of the air itself for breathing spells and in stooping for coppers--let him supply the words, I say, and his hearers will supply the feeling. For instance, if a gridler has sung an old well known hymn fifty or sixty times a day for ten or fifteen years, he cannot reasonably be expected to be affected by the words. It would be extremely thoughtless to request of such an one an encore without giving a promise of further reward. In fact this man is really so weary of song that if there is any merry making at the lodging house, he is the one man who will not sing, not even under the influence of drink; and, what is more no man would invite him for, being a gridler and earning his living by song, we know well that his voice is spoilt, and that he cannot sing. The gridler considers himself to be at the top of the begging profession, for his stock never gets low, nor requires replenishing; and his voice is only a little weak thing of no weight, the notes of which are born into the world from his throat, and was never roused from sleep in the depths of his chest. There is no strain or effort in giving these notes to the world--despite the gridler's affectations--and he neither grows pale nor red with the exertion.