ears past. The canal, too, was deserted, save for
one long monkey-boat, black as Charon's barge, that lay moored to a
post on the towpath, some seventy-odd yards up stream, near where the
wall of the Orphanage ended. Beyond this, and over a line of ragged
thorns, the bulk of a red-brick Brewery--its roof crowned with a
sky-sign--closed the view.

The monkey-boat lay with her stem down-stream, and her after-part--her
habitable quarters--covered by a black tarpaulin. A solitary man was at
work shovelling coal out of her middle hold into a large metal bucket.
As Tilda hobbled towards him he hoisted the full bucket on his
shoulders, staggered across the towpath with it, and shot its contents
into a manhole under the brick wall. Tilda drew near and came to a
halt, watching him.

"Afternoon," said the man, beginning to shovel again.

"Afternoon," responded Tilda.

He was a young man--she could detect this beneath his mask of coal dust.
He wore a sack over his shoulders, and a black sou'wester hat with a
hind-flap that fell low over his neck. But she liked the look in his
eyes, though the rims of them were red and the brows caked with grit.
She liked his voice, too. It sounded friendly.

"Is this the Orph'nige? What they call 'Oly Innercents?" she asked.

"That's so," the young coalheaver answered. "Want to get in?"

"I do an' I don't," said Tilda.

"Then take my advice an' don't."

He resumed his shovelling, and Tilda watched him for a while.

"Nice dorg," said he, breaking off and throwing an affable nod towards
Godolphus who, having attracted no attention by flinging himself on the
grass with a lolling tongue and every appearance of fatigue, was now
filling up the time in quest of a flea. "No breed, but he has points.
Where did you pick him up?"

"He belongs to a show."

"Crystal Pallus?"

"And," pursued Tilda, "I was wonderin' if you'd look after him while I
step inside?"

She threw back her head, and the man whistled.

"You're a trustin' one, I must say!"

"You'd never be mean enough to make off with 'im, an' I won't believe it
of you," spoke up Tilda boldly.

"Eh? I wasn' talkin of the dorg," he explained. "I was meanin' the
Orph'nage. By all accounts 'tisn' so easy to get in--an' 'tis a sight
harder to get out."

"I've _got_ to get in," urged Tilda desperately.

"I've a message for someone inside. His name's Arthur Miles Chandon."

The young coalheaver shook his head.

"I don't kn