"Vot Bill!—vy I ardly know'd yer! Vot a precious long phiz you have got! Vot has give you the blues?"
"Blues!" echoed the showman, for an instant raising his eyes; "Ain't it enough to make a heart of stone bleed to see this here Fair? Ain't it enough to—" but here his eyes again fell upon the ground, and superintended a little hole which he was digging with his iron heel.
"Vell, but man," rejoined the corduroys, encouragingly, as he glanced about him, "there arn't a wery great squeege to-night, to be sure, but yer vosn't so thin yisterday, and the day afore, vos yer?"
"Wasn't we though," sighed the proprietor, with a significant nod, "in that ere precious pourer yisterday—we wasn't thin, eh?—oh, not at all!"—
"Vell, don't founder, old boy. Come, go up, go up, and then the people'll follow you!"
"Not they," returned the dejected man; "They hasn't the sperit, Jim. They sneeks avay to the gin-shops and destroys their morals—gets drunk, and goes home and whacks their innercent wives—here's a precious state o' things for a civilised country!"
"Vell, niver mind. See, your good woman's a-calling of yer; go up to her, for down here yer looks as miserable as a fish out o' water. Ve all regrets it, but if yer perfession is ruined, vy, try your hand in some other line, that's all."
"Niver! niver, Jim!" cried the indomitable showman; "I wos born in a wan—I wos edicated in a wan—I've lived in a wan, and—I'll die in a wan!" Saying which, he rushed frantically up the steps, vented the first burst of his feelings in a terrific flourish upon the trumpet, and ultimately calmed down at the barrel organ. Very soon after, St Paul's sonorous voice spoke his dismal fiat, and as he tolled out the eleventh hour, seemed to ring the knell of our dear departed Bartholomew Fair. Alpha.