e do you work?"

"In London when I can find work."

"Where are you going now?"

"To London."

"How much money have you got?"

"Three-halfpence."

"Humph!"

I don't know whether a murder had recently been committed in Kent, and
whether I in some degree answered to the description of the supposed
murderer. If it were so, the unfortunate circumstance will explain why
the sergeant should have run me through and through with his eyes whilst
propounding these queries, and why he should have made them in such a
gruff voice. However, he seemed to have finally arrived at the
conclusion that I was not the person wanted for the murder, and after a
brief pause he said, "Go inside."

I went inside, into one of the snuggest little police-offices I have
seen in the course of some tramping, and took the liberty of warming
myself by the cosy fire, whilst the remaining applicants for admission
to Watts's were being put through a sort of minor catechism such as that
I had survived. Presently the sergeant came in with the selected five of
my yard companions, and, taking us one by one, entered in a book, under
the date "24th December," our several names, ages, birthplaces and
occupations, also the names of the last place we had come from, and the
next whither we were going. Then, taking up a scrap of blue paper with
some printed words on it, and filling in figures, a date, and a
signature, he bade us follow him.

Out of the snug police-office--which put utterly in the shade the
comforts of the cathedral regarded as a sleeping place--across the
courtyard, which somebody said faced the Sessions House, down High
Street to the left till we stopped before an old-fashioned white house
with a projecting lamp lit above the doorway, shining full on an
inscription graven in stone. I read it then and copied it when I left
the house next morning. It ran thus:--

RICHARD WATTS, Esqr.
by his will dated 22 Aug., 1579,
founded this charity
for six poor travellers,
who not being Rogues, or Proctors,
may receive gratis, for one Night,
Lodging, Entertainment,
and four pence each.
In testimony of his Munificence,
in honour of his Memory,
and inducement to his Example,
Nathl. Hood, Esq., the present Mayor,
has caused this stone,
gratefully to be renewed,
and inscribed,