Fan | Page 9

vegetables, of haddock and herring, shell-fish,
and rabbits, the skins dangling in clusters at each end of the barrow.

Public-houses were numerous here; on the pavement before them
groups of men were standing, pipe in mouth, idly talking; these were
men who had already got rid of their week's earnings, or of that portion
they had reserved for their own pleasures, but were not yet prepared to
go home, and so miss the chance of a last half-pint of beer from some
passing still solvent acquaintance. There were other larger groups and
little crowds gathered round the street auctioneers, minstrels, quacks,
and jugglers, whose presence in the busier thoroughfare was not
tolerated by the police.
It was late now, and the money spending and getting nearly over;
costermongers, some with half their goods still unsold, were leaving;
the groups were visibly thinning, the doors of the public-houses
swinging to and fro less frequently. As Fan hurried anxiously along,
she peeped carefully through the clouded window-panes into the
"public bar" department of each drinking place in search of her mother,
and paused for a few moments whenever she came to a group of
spectators gathered round some object of curiosity at a street corner.
After satisfying herself that her mother was not in the crowd, she would
remain for a few moments looking on with the others.
At one spot her attention was painfully held by a short, dark, misshapen
man with no hands nor arms, but only the stump of an arm, with a stick
tied to it. Before him on a rough stand was a board, with half a dozen
thick metal wires stretched across it. Rapidly moving his one poor
stump, he struck on the wires with his stick and so produced a
succession of sounds that roughly resembled a tune. Poor man, how she
pitied him; how much more miserable seemed his life than hers! It was
cold and damp, yet the perspiration stood in great drops on his sallow,
wasted face as he violently wriggled his deformed body about, playing
without hands on his rude instrument--all to make a few pence to save
himself from starvation, or from that living tomb into which, with a
humanity more cruel than Nature's cruelty, we thrust the unfit ones
away out of our sight! No one gave him anything for his music, and
with a pang in her heart she hurried away on her quest.
Not all the street scenes were ghastly or painful. She came to one

crowd, ranged motionless and silent before a large, fat,
dignified-looking man, in good broad-cloth garments, white tie, and
wearing a fez; he was calmly sitting on a camp-stool, and held a small
phial in one hand. Not a word did he speak for a long time. At length
one of the onlookers, a tipsy working-man, becoming impatient,
addressed him:
"Ain't you going to do nothing, mister? Here I've been a-waiting with
these other ladies and gentl'men more'n ten minutes, and you ain't done
nothing yet, nor yet said nothing."
The fat man placed a hand on his broad shirt-front, rolled up his eyes,
and solemnly shook his head.
"Fools, fools!" he said, as if speaking to himself. "But what does it
matter to me if they won't be saved--if they'd rather die of their
complaints? In the East it's different, because I'm known there. I've
been to Constantinople, and Morocco, and everywhere. Let them ask
the heathen what I have done for them. Do they think I cure them for
the sake of their dirty pence? No, no; those that like gold, and jewels,
and elephants to ride on, can have it all in the East, and I came away
from there. Because why? I care more for these. I don't ask them what's
the matter with them! Is there such a thing as a leper in this crowd? Let
them bring me a leper here, and I'll cure him for nothing, just to show
them what this medicine is. As for rheumatics, consumption, toothache,
palpitations of the 'art--what you like, that's all nothing. One drop and
it's gone. Sarsaparilla, and waters this, and pills that, what they give
their pence for, and expect it's going to do them good. Rubbish, I call it.
They buy it, as much as they can put in their insides, and die just the
same. This is different. Twenty years in the East, and this is what I got.
Doctors! I laugh at such people."
Here, with a superior smile, he cast down his eyes again and relapsed
into silence.
No one laughed. Then Fan heard someone near her remark: "He has
book- learning, that's what he has"; to which another voice replied, "Ah,
you may say it, and he has more'n that."

Next to Fan stood a