or Jim stuttered and haggled while trying to explain what
was the matter with him.

"I tell you, guvnor, I've got a something that must come out, or I shall
choke straight off. I want to speak, and I can't get no words."

I shall say nothing of the long talk that went on. I know something
about it, but the subject is too sacred for a Loafer to touch. I shall
only say that Jim Billings got release, as the fishers say, and his
wild, infantine outburst made powerful men cry like children.

He is now a very quiet soul, and he neither visits The Chequers nor any
other hostelry. There was great fun among the Gorleston men when Jim
turned serious, and one merry smacksman actually struck at the quadroon.
Jim bit his lip, and said,

"Bill, old lad, I'd have killed you for that a year ago. Shake hands;
God bless you!"

Which was rather a plucky thing to do.

Some blathering parsons say that this blessed Mission is teaching men to
talk cant and Puritanism. Speaking as a very cynical Loafer, I can only
say that if Puritanism turns fishing fleets and fishing towns from being
hells on earth into being decent places; if Puritanism heals the sick,
comforts the sufferers, carries joy and refinement and culture into
places that were once homes of horror, and renders the police force
almost a superfluity in two great towns--then I think we can put up with
Puritanism.

I know that Jim Billings was a dangerous untamed animal; he is now a
jolly, but quiet fellow. I was always rather afraid of him; but now I
should not mind sailing in his vessel. The Puritan Mission has civilised
him and hundreds on hundreds more, and I wish the parsons had done just
half as much.

For my own part, I think that when I am clear of The Chequers I shall go
clean away into the North Sea. If on some mad night the last sea heaves
us down, and the Loafer is found on some wind-swept beach, that will be
as good an end as a burnt-out, careless being can ask. Perhaps Jim
Billings, the rough, and I, the broken gentleman, may go triumphantly
together. Who knows? I should like to take the last flight with the
fighting nigger.

OUR PARLOUR COMPANY.

We have one room where high prices are charged. This place is kept very
select indeed, and the vulgar are excluded. I was not received very well
at first, and some of the assembly talked at me in a way which was
intended to be highly droll; but I never lost temper, and I fairly
established my position by din