d," said the seaman, "clap a stopper on your tongue, if
you can, and heave ahead."

"All right, capp'n," returned the small boy, "foller me, an' don't be
frightened. Port your helm a bit here, there's a quicksand in the
middle o' the track--so, steady!"

Avoiding a large pool of mud with which the head of the lane was
garnished, and which might have been styled the bathing, not to say
wallowing, quarters of the Grubb's Court juveniles, the small boy led
the bluff seaman towards the river without further remark, diverging
only once from the straight road for a few seconds, for the purpose of
making a furious rush at a sleeping cat with a yell worthy of a Cherokee
savage, or a locomotive whistle; a slight pleasantry which had the
double effect of shooting the cat through space in glaring convulsions,
and filling the small boy's mind with the placidity which naturally
follows a great success.

The lane presented this peculiarity, that the warehouses on its left
side became more and more solid and vast and tall as they neared the
river, while the shops and dwellings on its right became poorer, meaner,
and more diminutive in the same direction, as if there were some
mysterious connection between them, which involved the adversity of the
one in exact proportion to the prosperity of the other. Children and
cats appeared to be the chief day-population of the place, and these
disported themselves among the wheels of enormous waggons, and the legs
of elephantine horses with an impunity which could only have been the
result of life-long experience.

The seaman was evidently unaccustomed to such scenes, for more than once
during the short period of his progress down the lane, he uttered an
exclamation of alarm, and sprang to the rescue of those large babies
which are supposed to have grown sufficiently old to become nursing
mothers to smaller babies--acts which were viewed with a look of pity by
the small boy, and called from him the encouraging observations, "Keep
your mind easy, capp'n; _they're_ all right, bless you; the hosses knows
'em, and wouldn't 'urt 'em on no account."

"This is Grubb's Court," said the boy, turning sharply to the right and
passing through a low archway.

"Thank 'ee, lad," said the seaman, giving him a sixpence.

The small boy opened his eyes very wide indeed, exclaiming, "Hallo! I
say, capp'n, wot's this?" at the same time, however, putting the coin in
his pocket with an air which plainly said