While he was ruefully and hastily gathering the papers together, a band of street children swooped down and kicked them lustily about the filth.

He was battling with one urchin when a policeman grabbed him.

With an elusive twist he escaped and ran like a terrified hare.

Disaster followed, and that was the end of his career as a newsvendor.
Greater leisure for reading, however, compensated the loss of the occasional penny.

He read dazzling tales of dukes with palaces (like Chudley Court), and countesses with ropes of diamonds in their hair, who all bore a resemblance to the fragrant one.