"Don't you wish you may get it?" said the other sympathetically.
"Does your mother," said a third, with a look of sympathy—"your venerable mother, know that you are abroad at the Fair?"
"Perfectly well," answered Scapegrace; "it was mainly in consequence of her pecuniary distress that I came hither."
"Distress, indeed!" answered the other; "thou wouldst not have us believe that she has sold her mangle yet?"
"I said not that she had," replied Scapegrace; "but she would gladly have parted with it if she could."
"How are you off for soap?" said another in a compassionate tone.
"Very indifferently, friend," answered Scapegrace; "for my lodging has been but poorly supplied of late, and I think of changing it."
"Lodging, quotha! You shan't lodge here, Mr Ferguson, I promise you."
"My name is not Ferguson," said Scapegrace meekly; "neither have I the least intention of lodging here."
"What a shocking bad hat!" cried a voice from behind, and in a trice was Scapegrace's hat knocked over his eyes, and his pockets turned inside out; but finding nothing therein but scrip, they were enraged, and falling upon Scapegrace, they kicked, and cuffed, and hustled him up one row and down another, through this alley and across that court, till at last, being tired of mocking him, they cast him out of the Fair altogether, and shut the gate against him.