nd I were mere boys, while the weather was fine people took
our boat as willingly as they did those of grown men. Sometimes we got
parties to go off to the _Victory_, at others across to the Victualling
Yard, and occasionally up the harbour to Porchester Castle.

We worked early and late, and Jim or I was always on the look-out for a
fare.

When I got home at night I had generally a good account to give of the
day's proceedings. Now and then I asked Jim in to take a cup of tea,
and many a hearty laugh we had at what the ladies and gentlemen we had
taken out had said and done. Seeing that we were but boys they fancied
that they could talk before us in a way they wouldn't have thought of
doing if we had been grown men.

It must not be supposed that we were able to save much, but still I put
by something every week for the repairs of the boat I had got enough to
give her a fresh coat of paint, which she much wanted, and we agreed
that we would haul her up on Saturday afternoon for the purpose, so that
she would be ready for Monday.

We carried out our intentions, though it took every shilling I had put
by, and we lost more than one fare by so doing. But the wherry looked
so fresh and gay, that we hoped to make up for it the next week. Jim
went to chapel on the Sunday with Mary and Nancy and me, and spent most
of the day with us. He was so quiet and unassuming that we all liked
him much. As we had put plenty of dryers in the paint, and the sun was
hot on Sunday, by Monday forenoon we were able to ply as usual. We had
taken a fare across to Gosport, when a person, whom we supposed to be a
gentleman from his gay waistcoat and chains, and his top-boots, and hat
stuck on one side, came down to the beach and told us to take him over
to Portsea. We soon guessed by the way he talked that, in spite of his
fine clothes, he was not a gentleman.

"I say, you fellow, do you happen to know whereabouts an old chap, one
Tom Swatridge, lives?" he asked of Jim.

"He doesn't live anywhere; he's dead," answered Jim.

"Dead! Dead, do you say?" he exclaimed. "Who's got his property?"

"He had no property that I knows on," answered Jim; "except, maybe--"

"Oh yes, he had; and if the old fellow had lived he would have been the
possessor of a good round sum; but, as I am his nephew, that will be
mine, and everything else he left behind him, the lawyer, Master
Six-and-eightpence, as I call him, tells me."

All this time I had