ent upon the poop, watching the mob
with a certain scornful interest. On the third he did not appear,
but was served with _tiffin_ in his cabin. At about six o'clock, the
second mate--a Mr. Orchard--sought the captain to report that all
was ready and waiting the word to cast off. His way led past
Mr. Annesley's cabin, and there he came upon an old mendicant
stooping over the door handle and making as if to enter and beg; whom
he clouted across the shoulders and cuffed up the companion-ladder.
Mr. Orchard afterwards remembered to have seen this same beggar man,
or the image of him, off and on during the two previous days, seated
asquat against a post on the Bund, and watching the _Albemarle_,
with his crutch and bowl beside him.

When the rush came, this old man, bent and blear-eyed, was swept
along the gangway like a chip on the tide. In pure lightness of
heart a sailor, posted at the head of the plank, expedited him with a
kick. "That'll do for good-bye to India," said he, grinning.

The old man showed no resentment, but was borne along bewildered,
gripping his bowl to his breast. On the quay's edge he seemed to
find his feet, and shuffled off towards the town, without once
looking back at the ship.

CHAPTER I.

"MILL--mill! A mill!"

At the entrance of Dean's Yard, Westminster, a small King's Scholar,
waving his gown and yelling, collided with an old gentleman hobbling
round the corner, and sat down suddenly in the gutter with a squeal,
as a bagpipe collapses. The old gentleman rotated on one leg like a
dervish, made an ineffectual stoop to clutch his gouty toe and wound
up by bringing his rattan cane smartly down on the boy's shoulders.

"Owgh! Owgh! Stand up, you young villain! My temper's hasty, and
here's a shilling-piece to cry quits. Stand up and tell me now--is
it Fire, Robbery, or Murder?"

The youngster pounced at the shilling, shook off the hand on his
collar, and darted down Little College Street to Hutton's Boarding
House, under the windows of which he pulled up and executed a
derisive war-dance.

"Hutton's, Hutton's,
Put up your buttons,
Hutton's are rottenly Whigs--"

"Mill--mill! Come out and carry home your Butcher Randall!
You'll be wanted when Wesley has done with him."

He was speeding back by this time, and flung this last taunt from a
safe distance. The old gentleman collared him again by the entry.

"Stop, my friend--here, hold hard for a momen