“Ah! sir,” he began, in a tone according with his look, “sprats _is_ a blessing to the poor. Fresh herrings is a blessing too, and sprats is young herrings, and is a blessing in ’portion” [for so he pronounced what seemed to be a favourite word with him “proportion”]. “It’s only four years--yes, four, I’m sure of that--since I walked the streets starving, in the depth of winter, and looked at the sprats, and said, I wish I could fill my belly off you. Sir, I hope it was no great sin, but I could hardly keep my hands from stealing some and eating them raw. If they make me sick, thought I, the police’ll take care of me, and that’ll be something. While these thoughts was a passing through my mind, I met a man who was a gentleman’s coachman; I knew him a little formerly, and so I stopped him and told him who I was, and that I hadn’t had a meal for two days. ‘Well, by G--,’ said the coachman, ‘you look like it, why I shouldn’t have known you. Here’s a shilling.’ And then he went on a little way, and then stopped, and turned back and thrust 3-1/2_d._ more into my hand, and bolted off. I’ve never seen him since. But I’m grateful to him in the same ’portion (proportion) as if I had. After I’d had a penn’orth of bread and a penn’orth of cheese, and half-a-pint of beer, I felt a new man, and I went to the party as I’d longed to steal the sprats from, and told him what I’d thought of. I can’t say what made me tell him, but it turned out for good. I don’t know much about religion, though I can read a little, but may be that had something to do with it.” The rest of the man’s narrative was--briefly told--as follows. He was the only child of a gentleman’s coachman. His father had deserted his mother and him, and gone abroad, he believed, with some family. His mother, however, took care of him until her death, which happened “when he was a little turned thirteen, he had heard, but could not remember the year.” After that he was “a helper and a jobber in different stables,” and “anybody’s boy,” for a few years, until he got a footman’s, or rather footboy’s place, which he kept above a year. After that he was in service, in and out of different situations, until the time he specified, when he had been out of place for nearly five weeks, and was starving. His master had got in difficulties, and had gone abroad; so he was left without a character. “Well, sir,” he continued, “the man as I wanted to steal the sprats from, says to me, says he, ‘Poor fellow; I know what a hempty belly is myself--come and have a pint.’ And over that there pint, he told me, if I could rise 10_s._ there might be a chance for me in the streets, and he’d show me how to do. He died not very long after that, poor man. Well, after a little bit, I managed to borrow 10_s._ of Mr. ---- (I thought of him all of a sudden). He was butler in a family that I had lived in, and had a charitable character, though he was reckoned very proud. But I plucked up a spirit, and told him how I was off, and he said, ‘Well, I’ll try you,’ and he lent me 10_s._, which I paid him back, little by little, in six or eight weeks; and so I started in the costermonger line, with the advice of my friend, and I’ve made from 5_s._ to 10_s._, sometimes more, a week, at it ever since. The police don’t trouble me much. They is civil to me in ’portion (proportion) as I am civil to them. I never mixed with the costers but when I’ve met them at market. I stay at a lodging-house, but it’s very decent and clean, and I have a bed to myself, at 1_s._ a week, for I’m a regular man. I’m on sprats now, you see, sir, and you’d wonder, sometimes, to see how keen people looks to them when they’re new. They’re a blessing to the poor, in ’portion (proportion) of course. Not twenty minutes before you spoke to me, there was two poor women came up--they was sickly-looking, but I don’t know what they was--perhaps shirt-makers--and they says to me, says they, ‘Show us what a penny plateful is.’ ‘Sart’nly, ladies,’ says I. Then they whispered together, and at last one says, says she, ‘We’ll have two platefuls.’ I told you they was a blessing to the poor, sir--’specially to such as them, as lives all the year round on bread and tea. But it’s not only the poor as buys; others in ’portion (proportion). When they’re new they’re a treat to everybody. I’ve sold them to poor working-men, who’ve said, ‘I’ll take a treat home to the old ’oman and the kids; they dotes on sprats.’ Gentlemen’s servants is very fond of them, and mechanics comes down--such as shoemakers in their leather aprons, and sings out, ‘Here, old sprats, give us two penn’orth.’ They’re _such_ a relish. I sell more to men than to women, perhaps, but there’s little difference.