‘I tell you I ain’t agoin’ to eat fat,’ he said, in a hoarse voice, as if his throat was stuffed up with one of his own newspapers. ‘I want a special, I don’t want a hordinary.’ ‘This are a special, I tells you,’ retorted Spilsby, ungrammatically, pushing a smoking pie towards the boy; ‘what a young wiper you are, Grattles, a-comin’ and spoilin’ my livin’ by cussin’ my wictuals.’ ‘Look ‘ere,’ retorted Grattles, standing on the tips of his large boots to look more imposing, ‘my stumick’s a bit orf when it comes to fat, and I wants the vally of my penny; give us a muttony one, with lots of gravy.’ ‘’Ere y’are, then,’ said Spilsby, quite out of temper with his fastidious customer; ‘’ere’s a pie as is all made of ram as ‘adn’t got more fat on it than you ‘ave.’ Grattles examined the article classed under this promising description with a critical air, and then laid down his penny and took the pie. ‘It’s a special, ain’t it?’ he asked, suspiciously smelling it. ‘It’s the specialest I’ve got, any’ow,’ answered Spilsby, testily, putting the penny in his pocket; ‘you’d eat a ‘ole sheep if you could get it for a penny, you greedy young devil, you.’ Here Kitty, who was feeling faint and ill with so much walking, came forward and asked for a cup of coffee. ‘Certainly, dear,’ said Spilsby, with a leer, pouring out the coffee; ‘I’m allays good to a pretty gal.’ ‘It’s more nor your coffee is,’ growled Grattles, who had finished his special and was now licking his fingers, ‘it’s all grounds and ‘ot water.’ ‘Go away, you wicious thing,’ retorted Spilsby, mildly, giving Kitty her coffee and change out of the money she handed him, ‘or I’ll set the perlice on yer.’ ‘Oh, my eye!’ shrieked Grattles, executing a grimace after the fashion of a favourite comedian; ‘he ain’t a tart, oh, no--‘es a pie, ‘e are, a special, a muttony special; ‘e don’t kill no kittings and call ‘em sheep, oh, no; ‘e don’t buy chicory and calls it coffee, blest if ‘e does; ‘e’s a corker, ‘e are, and ‘is name ain’t the same as ‘is father’s.’ ‘What d’ye mean,’ asked Spilsby, fiercely--that is, as fiercely as his meek appearance would let him; ‘what do you know of my parents, you bandy-legged little devil? who’s your--progenitor, I’d like to know?’ ‘A dook, in course,’ said Grattles loftily; ‘but we don’t, in consequence of ‘er Nibs bein’ mixed up with the old man’s mother, reweal the family skeletons to low piemen,’ then, with a fresh grimace, he darted along the street as quickly as his bandy legs could carry him. Spilsby took no notice of this, but, seeing some people coming round the corner, commenced to sing out his praises of the specials. ‘’Ere yer are--all ‘ot an’ steamin’,’ he cried, in a kind of loud bleat, which added still more to his sheep-like appearance: ‘Spilsby’s Specials--oh, lovely--ain’t they nice; my eye, fine muttin pies; who ses Spilsby’s; ‘ave one, miss?’ to Kitty.