Vol. VI No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

THE BERMONDSEY BOOK
hat stuck on the back of her head well satisfied in getting such value for
ninepence.
I now began to move on and after passing an ice-cream barrow, a
barrel organ, and a man selling racing tips, I came to a second-hand
furniture stall. What bargains!
A pair of pictures advertising a certain brand of whisky, for one
shilling the pair, must have drawn my attention, for I was gazing at
these when the owner of the stall approached me and diverted my
attention to himself.
"Wot yer looking fer, guvner? They're cheap, sort 'em out. This
*ere sideboard's cheap, guvner. Six bob!"
Whilst he was talking to me, a pompous lady arrived, took a pinch
of snuff, and told a howling urchin who was holding her skirt to "shut
yer fice, fer gawd's sake," and then began to pound and shake a dilapidated
armchair which, as she told the owner, had "taken 'er fancy."
After much haranguing over the price and much walking away and
coming back, the chair changed hands for two shillings. The condition
of the goods on this stall did not belie the owner's cry, "Second-hand
furniture," for the goods were and thoroughly looked it.
The next stall had a varied display of well-polished boots and shoes
in the last stages of senile decay. The owner, a stout Hebrew with a
bushy moustache and wearing odd boots, seemed well content to sit on a
box at the side of his barrow gazing philosophically at the feet of the
passers by.
The rest of the road was occupied by an assortment of second-hand
clothes stalls and fruit stalls. The people had thinned out, the noise
was less and very few people were buying. So it was when I came to the
last person, a policeman standing near the curb and smiling to a well
powdered young lady who was tripping across the Tower Bridge Road.
[This "little bit of life" is the work of a member of the Bermondsey Bookshop
who has contributed articles to previous numbers of the BERMONDSEY
BOOK.]