hours, and you can't choose your district. On
Lord Mayor's Day you may earn enough for a
week in an hour or two, up a court about the
Old Bailey, when the people are waiting to see
the procession. But then every day of the year
ain't the ninth of Nowember. As a rule, there's
nothing to be done in the nigger line until after
dinner. Organs is the only thing in that way
that people will stand directly after breakfast.
You want a good foundation of roast beef
or pork and something to drink, before you are
in a humour for the niggers. And do you know,
sir, I fancy that the more people have to drink,
the better they like our performance. And so
it is, sir, that our best time is at night about
an hour before the public-houses close. As the
Latin poet says, sir: In wino weritas. Well, I
used to do a very good night business with our
troupe, of which, being the concertina, I was
the head and director, a very good business, sir,
until I got married. But I hadn't been married
a week, before Mrs. G. began to row me about
being out late at night.

"My dear Maria," I says to her, "it's business;
it's your living, my dear, and mine too."

"Don't tell me," she says; "there's no
proper business to be done at this time of
night, and if I had known the sort of life you
was going to lead me, I shouldn't have married
you."

"Well, Maria," I would say to her, "I'm
sure I never deceived you as to my line of
life."

"You told me you was a hartist," she says.

"I did," I says; "but did I ever deceive
you as to the nature of the hart? Didn't I tell
you in a honourable and straightforward manner
that I was in the musical way, that my instrument
was the concertina, and my spear of life
the streets? It is true," I says,"that I came
a-courting you in a clean face and my best
Sunday-going suit; but when you remarked a
black rim round my neck, didn't I make
a clean breast of it, and confess to the burnt
cork on my bended knees? And what did you
say to me, Maria? Didn't you take me by
the 'and, and say, 'Rise, Joseph, rise; it does
not become you to kneel thus to a fragile
woman? 'Love,' you says, 'is superior to a little
sut, and I'd love you all the same if you was
the Hottentot Wenus.'"

Yes, sir, I was candid with Maria, and I was
candid with her family, which had been in the
ironmongery line and seen better days, but was
now reduced through misfortunes. It is true
that Maria's ma kept a mangle, presented to
her by subscription by the members of her dutiful
family, and that her pa, being unequal to
exertion, was in the workhouse; but, having
paid taxes and kep their own chay in better
times, I knew what was due to them, and, on
aspiring to Maria's 'and, stated all
circumstances—birth, parentage, profession, and
average earnings.

I remember well, sir, what the old gentleman
said to me on the wedding-day. I went down
to the workhouse for him at ten o'clock, and
brought him up in a cab to give his daughter
away. And he gave her away, sir, cheerfully—
which was very generous of him, considering
that she was all his property. And, coming
out of church, the old gentleman says to me.

"Joseph," says he, "things has been said,
but not by me. Mind, it wasn't me as said
Maria was going to marry beneath her. There's
no pride about me; but the old woman, you
know, was connected with the aristocracy, a
house where a footman was kep, and, though
brought down, Joseph, her notions are high.
She didn't quite like it at first, and might have
said something. But don't you take any notice
she'll be reconciled to it in time."

So she was, sir; for the very next Sunday the
old lady invited me and Maria to tea, and we
took our own tea and sugar, and a new cottage
loaf, and warmed the old lady up with a glass of
six ale, and she was reconciled in no time. So you
can't say there was any family misunderstanding,
can you, sir? It was all fair and square; Maria
knew what I was, and the family knew what I
was, and they took me for what I was.

Maria could not deny it; yet often when I went
home late she'd go into high strikes, fly at me
like a cat and tear my clothes off my back, get
hold of the tails of my coat—them long comic tails
as we wear, sir—and off they'd come like tinder;
then she'd make a grab at my hair, but that being
a horsehair wig, deceived her, and only aggravated
her the more, when she'd chuck the wig in
the fire and seize me by the real hair, pulling out
handfuls. There was no pacifying her, sir; soft
words weren't a bit of use. I've took home
something nice for supper, thinking that would
prevent a row; but it didn't. Once, it was a bit of
boiled pork and peas-puddin', and she took up the
peas-puddin' in handfuls and threw it at me like
mud. Peas-puddin' arn't a nice thing, sir, to
be compo'd with. I've took her home a velvet
bonnet all over roses and ribbons, and she's
danced upon it, sir.

When I've been very late, and frightened to
go home, I've got two or three of my mates to
go in with me; sometimes I've took the whole
troupe. But Lor' bless you, sir, it wouldn't have
made no difference if I had gone home guarded by
a regiment of soldiers, or a whole division of the
police. Maria let us have it all round, generally
with the banjo over the head. You see she had
no sympathy with hart, sir, didn't understand it.
Her idea of work was washing, and ironing, and
cleaning up the house. "Fine thing for you,"
she would say, "gallivanting about, seeing
pleasure, while I'm at home here, toiling and
slaving." As a general rule, sir, I don't think
women understand hart.

But the worst of it was that all this interfered
with business. I'm a man that likes peace and
quietness myself, and I'd do anything rather
than have a row. I've sat many a night in the
cold on the stairs, waiting for Maria's temper to
cool down. But if you tread upon a worm,
sir, it will turn, especially if you interfere with
it in business, and humiliate it before the public
at large. And that's what Maria did more than