f they should be taken ill,
he could turn it off as a jest; if taken well, he could proceed.

"I'm very sorry for you, Bones," said Aspel, not noticing the hint,
"very sorry, but what can I do? I have not a copper left beyond what I
absolutely require."

"Well, sir, I know that you can do nothing, but now that my wife and
child are actually starvin', I really don't see the sin of helpin'
myself to a loaf at the nearest baker's, and giving him leg-bail for
it."

"Nothing justifies stealing," said Aspel.

"D'ee think not, sir?" said Bones. "If you saw your wife now, supposin'
you had one, at the pint of death with hunger, an' you saw a loaf lyin'
as didn't belong to you, would you let her die?"

Aspel thought of May Maylands.

"I don't know," he replied, "what I should _do_. All that I say is,
that stealing is unjustifiable."

The argument was stopped at this point by the entrance of a small
telegraph message-boy.

Bones was startled by his sudden entrance.

"Well, good-night, sir, we'll talk that matter over some other time," he
said quickly, pulling his wideawake well over his face as he went out,
and giving the message-boy a prolonged stare.

The boy paid no regard to him, but, turning to Aspel, introduced himself
as Peter Pax.

"What! the comrade-in-arms of my friend Phil Maylands?" asked Aspel.

"The same, at your service," replied the small messenger; "an' if you
are the friend he talks to me so much about, as goes by the name of
George Aspel, an' is descended in a direct line from the old sea-kings,
I'm proud to make your acquaintance."

Aspel laughed at the consummate self-possession of the boy, and shaking
hands with him heartily as a comrade of their common friend Phil, bade
him take a seat, which he immediately did on the counter.

"You're surrounded by pleasant company here," observed Pax, gazing
intently at the pelican of the wilderness.

"Well, yes; but it's rather silent company," said Aspel.

"Did that fellow, now," continued Pax, pointing to the owl, "die of
surprise?"

"Perhaps he did, but I wasn't present at his death," returned the other.

"Well, now, I do like this sort o' thing."

Little Pax said this with such genuine feeling, and looked round him
with such obvious interest, that Aspel, with some surprise, asked him
why he liked it.

"Why? because from my earliest years I always was fond of animals. No
matter what sort they wos, I liked 'em all--birds an' beasts an' fis