At their elbows boys gloated over the pages of a penny dreadful, and the women fingered penny novelettes with rapid movements, trying to judge the contents from the gaudy cover.
The crowd at the provision stall brought Chook to a standstill again.
Enormous flitches hung from the posts, and the shelves were loaded with pieces of bacon tempting the eye with a streak of lean in a wilderness of fat.

The buyers watched hungrily as the keen knife slipped into the rich meat, and the rasher, thin as paper, fell on the board like the shaving from a carpenter's plane.

The dealer, wearing a clean shirt and white apron, served his customers with smooth, comfortable movements, as if contact with so much grease had nourished his body and oiled his joints.
When Chook elbowed his way to the corner where Joe Crutch and Waxy Collins had promised to meet him, there was no sign of them, and he took another turn up the middle arcade.

It was now high tide in the markets, and the stream of people filled the space between the stalls like a river in flood.

And they moved at a snail's pace, clutching in their arms fowls, pot-plants, parcels of groceries, toys for the children, and a thousand odd, nameless trifles, bought for the sake of buying, because they were cheap.