She's a friend of ours, coming to see us.' 'Nice friend for a respectable house,' snorted a fat woman with marrows on a handcart.
All the same the crowd made way a little.

The Queen met Robert on the pavement, and Cyril joined them, the Psammead bag still on his arm.
'Here,' he whispered; 'here's the Psammead; you can get wishes.' '_I_ wish you'd come in a different dress, if you HAD to come,' said Robert; 'but it's no use my wishing anything.' 'No,' said the Queen.

'I wish I was dressed--no, I don't--I wish THEY were dressed properly, then they wouldn't be so silly.' The Psammead blew itself out till the bag was a very tight fit for it; and suddenly every man, woman, and child in that crowd felt that it had not enough clothes on.

For, of course, the Queen's idea of proper dress was the dress that had been proper for the working-classes 3,000 years ago in Babylon--and there was not much of it.
'Lawky me!' said the marrow-selling woman, 'whatever could a-took me to come out this figure ?' and she wheeled her cart away very quickly indeed.
'Someone's made a pretty guy of you--talk of guys,' said a man who sold bootlaces.
'Well, don't you talk,' said the man next to him.

'Look at your own silly legs; and where's your boots ?' 'I never come out like this, I'll take my sacred,' said the bootlace-seller.