the
door.'

'What door?' asked the captain.

'Oh, a house I know of,' returned Herrick.

'But it was a public-house!' cried the clerk--only these were not his
words. 'And w'y didn't you take the carpet there instead of trundling in
a growler?'

'I didn't want to startle a quiet street,' said the narrator.

'Bad form. And besides, it was a hansom.'

'Well, and what did you do next?' inquired the captain.

'Oh, I went in,' said Herrick.

'The old folks?' asked the captain.

'That's about it,' said the other, chewing a grass.

'Well, I think you are about the poorest 'and at a yarn!' cried the
clerk. 'Crikey, it's like Ministering Children! I can tell you there
would be more beer and skittles about my little jaunt. I would go and
have a B. and S. for luck. Then I would get a big ulster with astrakhan
fur, and take my cane and do the la-de-la down Piccadilly. Then I would
go to a slap-up restaurant, and have green peas, and a bottle of fizz,
and a chump chop--Oh! and I forgot, I'd 'ave some devilled whitebait
first--and green gooseberry tart, and 'ot coffee, and some of that form
of vice in big bottles with a seal--Benedictine--that's the bloomin'
nyme! Then I'd drop into a theatre, and pal on with some chappies,
and do the dancing rooms and bars, and that, and wouldn't go 'ome
till morning, till daylight doth appear. And the next day I'd have
water-cresses, 'am, muffin, and fresh butter; wouldn't I just, O my!'

The clerk was interrupted by a fresh attack of coughing.

'Well, now, I'll tell you what I would do,' said the captain: 'I would
have none of your fancy rigs with the man driving from the mizzen
cross-trees, but a plain fore-and-aft hack cab of the highest registered
tonnage. First of all, I would bring up at the market and get a turkey
and a sucking-pig. Then I'd go to a wine merchant's and get a dozen of
champagne, and a dozen of some sweet wine, rich and sticky and strong,
something in the port or madeira line, the best in the store. Then I'd
bear up for a toy-store, and lay out twenty dollars in assorted toys
for the piccaninnies; and then to a confectioner's and take in cakes and
pies and fancy bread, and that stuff with the plums in it; and then to
a news-agency and buy all the papers, all the picture ones for the kids,
and all the story papers for the old girl about the Earl discovering
himself to Anna-Mariar and the escape of the Lady Maude from the private
madhouse; and then I'd tell the fe