DICK ROOK. 173 



racter. Chelsea or Greenwich pensioners, are 

 generally very communicative, and prolific of 

 anecdote. I have also occasionally met with 

 superannuated fishermen, shrimpers, or peri- 

 winkle collectors in sea-bathing towns, who are 

 very conversable, and who delight in a sunny 

 corner, where they bask with folded arms, either 

 talking over their past adventures, or prognos- 

 ticating the state of the weather. An old fellow, 

 clad in a patched coat, with an habitual stoop, 

 and a dirty-flag basket on his arm, in which he 

 deposits bones, bits of wood or iron, has often a 

 good deal to say. He is, however, very inferior 

 to those cyclops-like figures, who are sometimes 

 to be seen, with sacks on their backs, lurking 

 about in odd corners and out of the way places, 

 scraping amongst cinders and dust-holes for hid- 

 den treasures. They certainly have a larcenous 

 look, and are generally blear-eyed, but then they 

 have a thorough knowledge of the world, and 

 would furnish materials for a biographical history 

 of that industrious class of the community, called 

 cinder-pickers. 



Having thus confessed one of my peculiarities, it 

 will appear that I must be tolerably well ac- 

 quainted with the characters of some of the poorer 

 class. I am aware of the odd sort of drudgery 

 many of them undergo in order to procure a 

 living, and I am sorry to add the privations they 



