into the dining-room, which he had to cross to get to the
front door. But by the time we had entered the dining-room a stranger
had walked into the hall, and had also proceeded to open the door
opposite us. Ugly, who was greatly incensed, jumped forward and took
hold of a leg of the stranger's trousers.

Our visitor was a small, rough, ugly man, with a terrible squint in his
eyes and a voice as unpleasant as his face. He had no collar, only a
handkerchief about his neck, and wore a large, shaggy flushing jacket.
His first act was to kick Ugly halfway across the room, with the
salutation: "Take that, you damned cur, for your manners, damn you!"

Ugly made at him again fiercer than ever, but I caught him in time and
held him.

"Wat will you 'ab, sir?" asked Clump in a dignified voice.

"What will I have, ay? I'll have that cur's life if he comes at me
agin, and I want to know, old nigger, if,"--here the rough customer spit
some tobacco-juice on the floor--"I want to know if you kin 'commodate
four or five gents for the night, ay?"

All of Clump's spirit was aroused, and he stammered as he replied--

"No, mon; n-o-o-o! We dussen keeps no ho-o-o--hotel 'ere, we dussen.
You'se find tabben ober end de town. Dis am Massa Tre-gel--Tre-gel--
Massa Tregellin's privet mansion."

"Ho! ho!" answered the man, slapping his hat down on his head and
spitting again. "_Massa_ Tregellin's house, is it? Look here, boys,
you just tell your dad, when you see him, that he has got a foolish,
consequential nigger and a mean, tumbledown affair of a hut, if it can't
'commodate some poor sailors. Howsumever, I'll go back to my lugger,
and bad luck to your _mansion_! Old nig, look 'er here--perhaps we'll
see each other again." He looked slowly all round the room, and went
out, slamming the doors after him.

Fifteen minutes afterwards our tutors came in, and when they heard of
our visitor Captain Mugford waxed wroth.

"I wish I had been here," he exclaimed; "if I wouldn't have put that
scoundrel off soundings in about half a splice! The impudent fellow, to
attempt to lord it in that style in a gentleman's house. What do you
think of it, Mr Clare, eh?"

"Oh, not much, Captain Mugford. The man was probably tipsy, and was of
course a bully, or he would never have talked so before boys and a poor
old negro. I am glad neither Walter nor Harry was in the room."

"So am I, sir," said Walter; "we were in the kitchen and came in whe