the waterside
by night, and on the one occasion when a rush had been tried as he
strolled back in the twilight from Hanover Lodge, he had cracked Jem
Simcoe's head so thoroughly, that there was little likelihood of its
ever being much good to him in this world--a pretty thing for a man
living by his wits and with a family of three or four young wives
intermittently depending upon his efforts.

It was soon known that Mr. Kennedy McClure did not carry his money about
with him. He had deposited his pocket book with the city correspondents
of Sir Willliam Forbes's bank, and now walked about with a light step,
his blackthorn cudgel in his hand, and a glad light of battle in his
eye.

"Tell me the day before your bill is due and I shall have the money," he
said to the landlord of the "Green Dragon." And on the appointed morning
a messenger from the city brought the amount, which Kennedy would open
in the presence of Mr. Wormit himself, pay him, and send back the
receipt to his correspondents in the city, thus gaining the reputation
of being a man who knew his way about, and making a devoted slave of the
landlord, who liked all ready-money men as much as he hated all fools.

In this way, by the free speech of the admiring landlord of the "Green
Dragon," whose words admitted of no reply, Kennedy McClure grew daily in
honour and stature. To Mr. Wormit, himself no mean man, he had at first
appeared as a mere pensioner on the bounty of the inhabitant of the
royal Lodge. But he soon grew into the Superintendent of her Estates. He
became "her confidential man"--"him as looks after her business." He
ended by being the Princess's adviser on all her affairs, and in
addition a mint of power and wisdom on his own account.

Had he not got the landlord's second son James Wormit into the Lodge
gardens, where he had been appointed auxiliary to Miss Aline? Had he
not, though declaring himself wholly ignorant of English law, furnished
the hint which led to the favourable settlement of the long-disputed
case of H. M. Excise Board _versus_ Wormit? Altogether a wonderful man,
the landlord declared Kennedy to be, and a credit to the house any way
you looked at it.

He knew a thing or two, he did. Would he have all these sailor-men from
the docks sent to take their orders from him every day or two if he were
an ordinary country gull? Would the young lady from the Lodge--she who
went to the Court at Windsor, and drove out with the Princess--be