The coffee stalls were at all
the corners, with hungry-looking people of both sexes crowded round
them, and here and there in door steps could be seen some outcasts
resting in huddled heaps, while the policemen every now and then
would come up and make them move on.
Kitty was footsore and heart-weary, and felt inclined to cry, but
was nevertheless resolved not to go back to her home in Richmond.
She dragged herself along the lonely street, and round the corner
came on a coffee stall with no one at it except one small boy whose
head just reached up to the counter. Such a ragged boy as he was,
with a broad comical-looking face--a shaggy head of red hair and a
hat without any brim to it--his legs were bandy and his feet were
encased in a pair of men's boots several sizes too large for him. He
had a bundle of newspapers under one arm and his other hand was in
his pocket rattling some coppers together while he bargained with
the coffee-stall keeper over a pie. The coffee stall had the name of
Spilsby inscribed on it, so it is fair to suppose that the man
therein was Spilsby himself. He had a long grey beard and a meek
face, looking so like an old wether himself it appeared almost the
act of a cannibal on his part to eat a mutton pie. A large placard
at the back of the stall set forth the fact that 'Spilsby's
Specials' were sold there for the sum of one penny, and it was over
'Spilsby's Specials' the ragged boy was arguing.
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