undred
times: it's a regular old-fashioned country sermon; and, as for the poor
being so near hell, I put it in these four lines."

"Hear, hear!" cried the company; "order!"

And they prepared themselves for what was to come with as great eagerness
as, I venture to say, would always be shown to catch the text, if it came
at the end, instead of the beginning, of a sermon.

"Shut up," says Lazyman; "let's 'ear this 'ere. I knows it's summut good
by the look an him."

"Don't make a row," retorts the Boardman; "who can hear anything while
you keeps on like that?"

And there they stood, actually suspending the operation of smoking as
they waited the summing up of this remarkably orthodox "preaching of the
word." The sergeant only was a spectator of the scene, and much amused
did he seem at the faces that prepared for a grin or a sneer as the
forthcoming utterance should demand. Then said Harry solemnly and
dramatically:--

"In WANT full many a vice is born,
And Virtue in a DINNER;
A well-spread board makes many a SAINT,
And HUNGER many a sinner."

From the explosion which followed this antidote to Mr. Brimstone's
sermon, I should judge that the more part of the company believed that
Poverty was almost as ample a virtue as Charity itself. They shook their
heads in token of assent; they thumped the table in recognition of the
soundness of the teaching; and several uttered an exclamation not to be
committed to paper, as an earnest of their admiration for the ability of
Mr. Highlow, who, instead of being a private soldier, ought, in their
judgment, to be Lord Mayor of London. After this recital every one said
he thought Mr. Highlow might oblige them.

"Well, I'm no singer," said Harry.

"Try, Harry!" exclaimed Lazyman: he was a rare one to advise other people
to try.

"Trying to sing when you can't," answered Harry, "I should think is a rum
sort of business; but I'll tell you what I'll do if you like. When I was
down at Hearne Bay I heard an old fisherman tell a story which--"

"That's it!" thumped out Joe, "a story. I likes a good story, specially
if there be a goast in it."

"I don't know what there is in it," said Harry, "I'll leave you to make
that out; but I tell you what I did when I heard it, I made a ballad of
it, and so if you like I'll try and recollect it."

"Bravo!" they said, and Harry gave them the following

SONG OF THE WAVES.

Far away on the pebbly beach