e in Ken-tuck-y;
Your dater is my only lub, so pridee let us go
To where my corn is ripening on de O-hi-o.

"De fader weighed de purse, he took his half wid glee,
De moder said her child might go to Ken-tuck-y.
So de hunter and de maid, arm-in-arm dey go,
Across de Alleghany to de O-hi-o."

"Bravo, Billy, that's not so bad," said some of the pensioners.

"I tell you, Dick, I take de shine out of you. You nebber believe till I
make you fall in my wake, and den you soon be where de little boat
was--long way astarn."

"I'll tell you what, Billy," said Dick Harness, "you do improve, and
we'll allow you to sing that song once more before you die, just by way
of encouragement."

Dick then played several flourishes on his fiddle. Opposition Bill tried
to imitate him, but made sad work of it. It was near dinner-time, and
the pensioners rose and proceeded to the Painted Hall, for at that time
they dined there, and not below in the crypts as they do now.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I get into very doubtful Company--I am tempted, and, like a true
Son of Adam, I fall.

The reader must have observed that, under the tuition of Anderson, I
promised to follow the right path, and, provided his good offices were
not interfered with, there appeared little doubt but that such would be
the case. But I was little aware, nor was he, that the humble profession
which I had chosen for myself was beset with danger, and that the
majority of those with whom I was associating were the most likely of
all others to lead me into evil. Why I had not hitherto been tempted can
only be ascribed to my tender years. In fact, I had not been considered
strong enough, or of an age to be useful to them, but now that I was
more than thirteen years old--being, moreover, very tall and strong for
my age--the hour of temptation arrived; and fortunate was it for me
that, previous to this epoch, I had been taken under the protection of
Peter Anderson.

I have said in a former chapter that I was a regular _mudlarker_. So I
was, as far as the ostensible occupation of those who are so denominated
went; to wit, "picking up pieces of old rope, wood, etc." But the
mudlarkers, properly speaking, at that time composed a very extensive
body on the river, and were a more humble portion of the numerous river
depredators, of which I may hereafter speak. A mudlarker was a man who
had an old boat, generally sold by some merchant ves