eak. The news fell upon him with
a shock of disagreeable surprise, for, apart from the fact that he
really loved his friend, he was somehow aware that there were not many
other young men who cared much for himself--in regard to which he was
not a little surprised, for it never occurred to him that egotism and
selfishness had anything to do with the coolness of his friends, or that
none but men like our hero, with sweet tempers and self-forgetting
dispositions, could by any possibility put up with him.

"Who are the owners of the _Walrus_, Charlie?" he asked, as they turned
into the lane that led from the beach to the village.

"Withers and Company of London."

"H'm--don't know them. They must be trustful fellows, however, to take
a captain into their employ who has just lost his vessel."

"They have not _taken_ him into their employ," said Charlie. "Captain
Stride tells me he has been in their service for more than a quarter of
a century, and they exonerate him from all blame in the loss of the
brig. It does seem odd to me, however, that he should be appointed so
immediately to a new ship, but, as you remarked, that's none of my
business. Come, I'll go in with you and congratulate your mother and
May on your appointment."

They had reached the door of Shank Leather's house by that time. It was
a poor-looking house, in a poor side street or blind alley of the
village, the haunt of riotous children during the day-time, and of
maddening cats at night. Stray dogs now and then invaded the alley,
but, for the most part, it was to children and cats that the region was
given over. Here, for the purpose of enabling the proverbial "two ends"
to "meet," dwelt a considerable population in houses of diminutive size
and small accommodation. A few of these were persons who, having "seen
better days," were anxious to hide their poverty and existence from the
"friends" of those better days. There was likewise a sprinkling of
individuals and families who, having grown callous to the sorrows of
earth, had reached that condition wherein the meeting of the two ends is
a matter of comparative indifference, because they never met, and were
never more expected to meet--the blank, annually left gaping, being
filled up, somehow, by a sort of compromise between bankruptcy, charity,
and starvation.

To the second of these the Leather family belonged. They had been
brought to their sad condition by that prolific source of human mis