“Gord blesh you, mishter, a toisand year shall ye live.”

“Eat the best Motsos.  Only fourpence—­”

“The bones must go with, marm.  I’ve cut it as lean as possible.”

“Charoises (a sweet mixture). Charoises!  Moroire (bitter herb)! Chraine (horseradish)! Pesachdik (for Passover).”

“Come and have a glass of Old Tom, along o’ me, sonny.”

“Fine plaice!  Here y’are!  Hi! where’s yer pluck!  S’elp me—­”

“Bob! Yontovdik!  Yontovdik!  Only a bob!”

“Chuck steak and half a pound of fat.”

“A slap in the eye, if you—­”

“Gord bless you.  Remember me to Jacob.”

“Shaink (spare) meer a ’apenny, missis lieben, missis croin (dear)—­”

“An unnatural death on you, you—­”

“Lord!  Sal, how you’ve altered!”

“Ladies, here you are—­”

“I give you my word, sir, the fish will be home before you.”

“Painted in the best style, for a tanner—­”

“A spoonge, mister?”

“I’ll cut a slice of this melon for you for—­”

“She’s dead, poor thing, peace be upon him.”

“Yontovdik!  Three bob for one purse containing—­”

“The real live tattooed Hindian, born in the African Harchipellygo.  Walk up.”

“This way for the dwarf that will speak, dance, and sing.”

“Tree lemons a penny.  Tree lemons—­”

“A Shtibbur (penny) for a poor blind man—­”

“Yontovdik!  Yontovdik!  Yontovdik!  Yontovdik!”

And in this last roar, common to so many of the mongers, the whole Babel would often blend for a moment and be swallowed up, re-emerging anon in its broken multiplicity.

Everybody Esther knew was in the crowd—­she met them all sooner or later.  In Wentworth Street, amid dead cabbage-leaves, and mud, and refuse, and orts, and offal, stood the woe-begone Meckisch, offering his puny sponges, and wooing the charitable with grinning grimaces tempered by epileptic fits at judicious intervals.  A few inches off, his wife in costly sealskin jacket, purchased salmon with a Maida Vale manner.  Compressed in a corner was Shosshi Shmendrik, his coat-tails yellow with the yolks of dissolving eggs from a bag in his pocket.  He asked her frantically, if she had seen a boy whom he had hired to carry home his codfish and his fowls, and explained that his missus was busy in the shop, and had delegated to him the domestic duties.  It is probable, that if Mrs. Shmendrik, formerly the widow Finkelstein, ever received these dainties, she found her good man had purchased fish artificially inflated with air, and fowls fattened with brown paper.  Hearty Sam Abrahams, the bass chorister, whose genial countenance spread sunshine for yards around, stopped Esther and gave her a penny.  Further, she met her teacher, Miss Miriam Hyams, and curtseyed to her, for Esther was not of those who