Our scene shifts, and other characters appear on the stage.
It was evening in London.
A drizzling rain was coming steadily down; the pavement shone under the glittering gaslights as if it had been smeared with oil.
The streets were slush and mud, which a band of men in tarpaulin hats and coarse blue jackets were scraping to a heap, and piling in a cart with huge wooden instruments, half spade and half rake.
It has been said that London is paved with gold; few of us, however, have been fortunate enough to pick up a nugget, or even a few grains of that precious metal.
Nevertheless it is quite true that, by the refuse of the streets, large sums are realised.
Although the weather was so cheerless the streets were thronged with men and women, whose rapid movements and anxious looks explained that it was business, that patron saint of the great city, which had called them from their comfortable domiciles, their families, and their friends.
There was one, however, in the public thoroughfare who had no comfortable home, no family, and but few friends.
This was a wretched-looking boy.
He was standing opposite the Charing-cross railway station, not very far from the entrance to the Lowther Arcade.