ay his natural self with,

issued forth to the occupation of the day.

It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favourite

description of himself as “a honest tradesman.” His stock

consisted of a wooden stool, made out of a broken-backed chair

cut down, which stool, young Jerry, walking at his father’s side,

carried every morning to beneath the banking-house window that

was nearest Temple Bar: where, with the addition of the first

handful of straw that could be gleaned from any passing vehicle to

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keep the cold and wet from the odd-job-man’s feet, it formed the

encampment for the day. On this post of his, Mr. Cruncher was as

well known to Fleet Street and the Temple, as the Bar itself,and

was almost as ill-looking.

Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch his

three-cornered hat to the oldest of the men as they passed in to

Tellson’s, Jerry took up his station on this windy March morning,

with young Jerry standing by him, when not engaged in making

forays through the Bar, to inflict bodily and mental injuries of an

acute description on passing boys who were small enough for his

amiable purpose. Father and son, extremely like each other,

looking silently on at the morning traffic in Fleet Street, with their

two heads as near to one another as the two eyes of each were,