good riddance, do yer? You
wait a bit, that's all."

"Boh, boh!" chimed in the string. "Do you hear, Turnip? Wait till you
see the soldier; then see how you'll laugh!"

"What soldier?" I inquired, my curiosity for a moment getting the
better of my reserve. I could not imagine what possible connexion there
could be between the military and the disreputable copper I had so
lately seen depart.

I was not long in suspense, however, for before my two vulgar companions
could answer my question, the "soldier" made his appearance.

The dirty little hand again entered our quarters, and let fall in our
midst a red herring! At the sight and smell of him I turned sick with
disgust. Fancy a silver watch sat upon, squeezed, and besmeared by a
reeking red herring. He came sprawling right on the top of me, the
brute, his ugly mouth wide open and his loathsome fins scraping along my
back. Ugh!

"That there's the soldier, Turnip; ain't it, mate?" called out the pipe.

"Do you hear, Turnip? this here's the soldier. How do you like him?"
snuffled the string.

It was enough! I felt my nerves collapse, and my circulation fail, and
for the remainder of that dreadful night I was speechless.

I was not, however, blind, or so far gone as to be unable to notice in a
vague sort of way what happened.

The young gentleman rejoicing in the name of Cadger (but whose real
cognomen I subsequently ascertained to be Stumpy Walker) proceeded on
his walk, whistling shrilly to himself, exchanging a passing recognition
with one and another loafer, and going out of his way to kick every boy
he saw smaller than himself, which last exertion, by the way, at twelve
o'clock at night he did not find very often necessary.

I observed that he did not go out of his way to avoid the police; on the
contrary, he made a point of touching his hat to every guardian of the
peace he happened to meet, and actually went so far as to inform one
that "he'd want his muckintogs before morning"--a poetical way of
prophesying rain.

He proceeded down a succession of back streets, which it would have
puzzled a stranger to remember, till he came into a large deserted
thoroughfare which was undergoing a complete renovation of its drainage
arrangements. All along the side of the road extended an array of huge
new pipes, some three feet in diameter, awaiting their turn underground.
Into one of these Master Walker dived, and as it was just tall enough
to allow of