It was market day in Bedford, and there was the usual concourse of buyers and sellers, tramps and country people in their Sunday gear; farmers and their wives, with itinerant venders of every saleable and unsaleable article from far and near.

In truth, on its face the story as related by Fajala Mokarzel and the other friends of Sardi Babu the deceased pillow-sham vender was simplicity itself.

We sauntered by dark-eyed Italian girls lolling on the benches, shaggy bearded old sailors, whose scarred faces told of fierce battles with the elements, and stopped to examine the plaster casts presented for our inspection by a weary-eyed street vender.

Whoe'er has trudged, on frequent feet, From Charing Cross to Ludgate-street, That haunt of noise and wrangle, Has seen, on journeying through the Strand, A foreign image-vender stand Near Somerset's quadrangle.

A Japanese group interested him lateran old vender of sweetmeats in a city street, with children about himlittle girls bent forward under the weight of their small brothers.

It has been affirmed, that though by the bill the sale is permitted, it is permitted only because it cannot be hindered; and that the price is raised so high, that, though the lawful venders may be multiplied, the number of the purchasers must be diminished.

Then the enormous crowd was quiet, the band was still, even the noisy programme venders ceased calling their wares, and the photographer stood quietly beside his camera, the motor humming, his hand on the switch that starts the internal machinery.

I inquired diligently at what office any prize had been sold, that I might purchase of a propitious vender; solicited those who had been fortunate in former lotteries, to partake with me in my new tickets; and whenever I met with one that had in any event of his life been eminently prosperous, I invited him to take a larger share.

A gentleman from Dublin upon arriving at a West Indian port was accosted by a burly negro fruit vender with, "Th, top uv th' mornin' to ye, an' would ye be after wantin' to buy a bit o' fruit, sor?" The Irishman stared at him in amazement.

Near Santa Lucia she passed a wretched vender of strung filberts and doubtful cakes, mounting guard over his poor little handcart with a dilapidated umbrella, under the half-shelter of a projecting balcony.