angers at Charing
Cross and get English silver."

"O, you went there?" said the clerk. "Wot did you do? Bet you had a
B.-and-S.!"

"Well, you see, it was just as the old boy said--like the cut of a
whip," said Herrick. "The one minute I was here on the beach at three in
the morning, the next I was in front of the Golden Cross at midday. At
first I was dazzled, and covered my eyes, and there didn't seem the
smallest change; the roar of the Strand and the roar of the reef were
like the same: hark to it now, and you can hear the cabs and 'buses
rolling and the streets resound! And then at last I could look about,
and there was the old place, and no mistake! With the statues in the
square, and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and the bobbies, and the
sparrows, and the hacks; and I can't tell you what I felt like. I felt
like crying, I believe, or dancing, or jumping clean over the Nelson
Column. I was like a fellow caught up out of Hell and flung down into
the dandiest part of Heaven. Then I spotted for a hansom with a spanking
horse. 'A shilling for yourself if you're there in twenty minutes!' said
I to the jarvey. He went a good pace, though of course it was a trifle
to the carpet; and in nineteen minutes and a half I was at the door."

"What door?" asked the captain.

"O, a house I know of," returned Herrick.

"Bet 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.

"O, 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-da down Piccadilly. Then I would
go to a slap-up restaurant, and have green peas, and a bottle of fizz,
and a chump chop--O! 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 wit