Both have fluent tongues, equally bitter, and, having their audience, they, like other people, must contend for mastery.

Not that they care for the rights or wrongs of either question, for both are prepared, as occasion serves, to take either side.
Religion, too, is excitedly discussed, for an animated couple are discussing Christian Evidences, while the ventriloquist gives parsons generally and bishops in particular a very warm time; even the Pope and General Booth do not escape his scurrilous but witty indictments.
Meanwhile the street singers are practising songs, sacred and secular, and our friend the street minstrel produces an old flute and plays an obbligato, whilst the quivering voice of his poor old wife again wants to know the whereabouts of her wandering boy.
There will be a touching scene when they do meet--may I be there! but I hope they will not meet in a common lodging-house.

Another street minstrel is practising new tunes upon a mouth-organ, wherewith to soften the hearts of a too obdurate public.
What a babel it all makes; now groups of card-players are getting quarrelsome, for luck has been against some, or cheating has been discovered; blows are exchanged, and blood flows! As the night advances, men and women under the influence of drink arrive.

Some are merry, others are quarrelsome, some are moody and lachrymose.

The latter become the butt of the former, the noise increases, confusion itself becomes confounded, and we leave to avoid the general MELEE, and to breathe the night air, which we find grateful and reviving.