"I doesn't buy hanythink, eh? There's a hopposition can, too, started by a gentleman of my acquaintance"—here the young scamp put his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes and inflated himself after the supposed aristocratic fashion—"in the 'Aymarket. He calls the can the 'Gladstone,' and it's a werry spicy concern, I tell ye. Don't he give prime taters neither? They're real nobby ones, and plenty o' butter, and pepper, and salt. Oh! not at all! And its so werry respectable for a cove comin from the Hopera to stop and have a bit of supper on his road home. My heye, and haint the pro-pre-i-e-tor a makin of his fortin neither? Of course not! Oh, no. But there 'ill be fun when he returns to his willa with a postchay in Belgrawey in a few years."
By this time the Baked Potato man is pretty mad, between the pertinacity of his young tormentor and the highly colored picture of his rival's prosperity, as depicted by the boy, and he tells him in an angry way to "move hon, hif 'e doesn't want 'is preshis neck stretched."
"Wot, wiolence to one of her Majesty's subjecks, and hin the hopen day, too? Move hon, hey? Oh, werry likely. I'm a standin 'ere on my Sovrin's kerbstone—a Briton's 'Ouse is 'is castle, and when an Englishman hexpresses his hopinion hon the subjeck of baked taters he's to move hon, is he? Consekevently I'll stay here."
The "Baked Tater" man is now almost foaming at the mouth with rage, which is not lessened by the cheers of the spectators, who are, of course, on the side of the young orator.
He is about to lay down his can and pitch into his tormentor, when all at once that young gentleman assumes a pacific attitude, after displaying so much public spirit, and says:
"I don't want money nor credit, so look sharp ole feller and pick me a stunner from the Can."
At this moment the Potato Man's countenance relaxes, as the boy produces a penny-piece, and while he extracts a mealy potato from his can, the boy proceeds to amuse his audience further by going through a series of sleight of hand tricks, such as shaking the coin out of his cap after having swallowed it, or thrusting it into his eye and bringing it out of his ear, assuring the spectators the while that he had spent £20,000 in learning these tricks, and now, when the potato is handed to him, smoking hot, he expresses his indignation at the fact that the butter is "shaved too thin," and demands that what he loses in butter shall be made up to him by an extra shake of the pepper-box. At last he goes off to eat the potato, as the gray dawn breaks, and the man at the Can says:
"Oh, my eye—he is a precious leary cove for such a young von."
This market, as well as all the other London markets, is haunted with beggars who appeal to the charity of strangers with great effect.