This scene of Edinburgh street life in 1909 shows children at play in a game of ‘Pitch and Toss’, played by tossing up a coin and calling ‘heads’ or ‘tails’. Such urchin-like children, bare-foot and unkempt, would have been a familiar sight in Edinburgh or Glasgow. The saying ‘to pitch and toss with something’, or to be careless or trust one’s luck, seems to apply to these children who, despite their poor circumstances, display a sense of vigour and self-confidence. The children are skilfully grouped into a composition that is framed by the shop window of a bakery. The advert for Bermaline Bread, above the name of the shopkeeper, is for a type of brown bread made from malted meal flour that was popular in Scotland during the early twentieth century.