houghts than merely playing at the
game of amateur detective. Being enthusiastic and sanguine, besides
being spurred on by an intense desire to rescue the father of May
Leather, Charlie Brooke was thoroughly in earnest in his plan. He knew
that it would be useless to attempt such a search and rescue in any
other capacity than that of a genuine pauper, at least in appearance and
action. He therefore resolved to conduct the search in character, and
to plunge at once into the deepest pools of the slums.

It is not our intention to carry the reader through the
Arabian-night-like adventures which he experienced in his quest.
Suffice it to say that he did not find the lost man in the pools in
which he fished for him, but he ultimately, after many weeks, found one
who led him to the goal he aimed at.

Meanwhile there were revealed to him numerous phases of life--or,
rather, of living death--in the slums of the great city which caused him
many a heartache at the time, and led him ever afterwards to consider
with anxious pity the condition of the poor, the so-called lost and
lapsed, the depraved, degraded, and unfortunate. Of course he found--as
so many had found before him--that the demon Drink was at the bottom of
most of the misery he witnessed, but he also learned that whereas many
weak and vicious natures dated the commencement of their final descent
and fall from the time when they began to drink, many of the strong and
ferocious spirits had begun a life of wickedness in early youth, and
only added drink in after years as a little additional fuel to the
already roaring flame of sin.

It is well known that men of all stamps and creeds and classes are to be
found in the low lodging-houses of all great cities. At first Charlie
did not take note of this, being too earnestly engaged in the search for
his friend, and anxious to avoid drawing attention on himself; but as he
grew familiar with these scenes of misery and destitution he gradually
began to be interested in the affairs of other people, and, as he was
eminently sympathetic, he became the confidant of several paupers, young
and old. A few tried to draw him out, but he quietly checked their
curiosity without giving offence.

It may be remarked here that he at once dropped the style of talk which
he had adopted when representing Jem Mace, because he found so many in
the lodging-houses who had fallen from a good position in society that
grammatical language was b