himself personally to the ringleader of the rioters, the man who had
first championed the cause of the absent Joss. This person was a
brawny individual, who, judging from appearances, followed in his
business hours the calling of a coalheaver. "Yes, sir," said the
chairman, pointing a finger towards him, where he sat in the front
row of the gallery; "you, sir, in the flannel shirt. I can see you.
Will you allow this lady to give her entertainment?"

"No," answered he of the coalheaving profession, in stentorian tones.

"Then, sir," said the little chairman, working himself up into a
state suggestive of Jove about to launch a thunderbolt--"then, sir,
all I can say is that you are no gentleman."

This was a little too much, or rather a good deal too little, for the
Signora Ballatino. She had hitherto been standing in a meek attitude
of pathetic appeal, wearing a fixed smile of ineffable sweetness but
she evidently felt that she could go a bit farther than that herself,
even if she was a lady. Calling the chairman "an old messer," and
telling him for Gawd's sake to shut up if that was all he could do
for his living, she came down to the front, and took the case into
her own hands.

She did not waste time on the rest of the audience. She went direct
for that coalheaver, and thereupon ensued a slanging match the memory
of which sends a trill of admiration through me even to this day. It
was a battle worthy of the gods. He was a heaver of coals, quick and
ready beyond his kind. During many years sojourn East and South, in
the course of many wanderings from Billingsgate to Limehouse Hole,
from Petticoat Lane to White-chapel Road; out of eel-pie shop and