m that it was in a street not far from where they sat,
in a rather poor lodging.

"Secondly, ma'am, can you tell me where Willum's sister-in-law lives,--
Mrs Stout, _alias_ Stoutley?"

"No, Captain Wopper, but I daresay Mr Lawrence can. He knows 'most
everythink, and has a London Directory."

"Good. Now, in the third place, where am I to find a lodging?"

Mrs Roby replied that there were plenty to be found in London of all
kinds.

"You haven't a spare room here, have you?" said the Captain, looking
round.

Mrs Roby shook her head and said that she had not; and, besides, that
if she had, it would be impossible for her to keep a lodger, as she had
no servant, and could not attend on him herself.

"Mrs Roby," said the Captain, "a gold-digging seaman don't want no
servant, nor no attendance. What's up aloft?"

By pointing to a small trap-door in the ceiling, he rendered the
question intelligible.

"It's a garret, I believe," replied Mrs Roby, smiling; "but having no
ladder, I've never been up."

"You've no objection to my taking a look, have you?" asked the Captain.

"None in the world," replied the old woman. Without more ado the seaman
rose, mounted on a chair, pushed open the trap-door, thrust his head and
shoulders through, and looked round. Apparently the inspection was not
deemed sufficiently close, for, to the old woman's alarm and
inexpressible surprise, he seized the edges of the hole with his strong
hands, raised himself up, and finally disappeared in the regions above!
The alarm of the old woman was somewhat increased by the sound of her
visitor's heavy tread on the boards overhead as he stumbled about.
Presently his head appeared looking down through the trap. In any
aspect, Captain Wopper's shaggy head was an impressive one; but viewed
in an upside-down position, with the blood running into it, it was
peculiarly striking.

"I say, old lady," he shouted, as if his position recalled the action
and induced the tones of a boatswain, "it'll do. A capital berth, with
two portholes and a bunk."

The Captain's head disappeared, and immediately his legs took its place,
suggesting the outrageous idea that he had thrown a somersault. Next
moment his huge body slid down, and he stood on the floor much flushed
and covered with dust.

"Now, old girl, is it to be?" he said, sitting down at the table. "Will
you take me as a lodger, for better and for worse? I'll fit up the
berth on the main-deck, a