, "Whether you've made a
mistake or not, you needn't expect to get it back again."

Evidently the seaman entertained no such expectations, for he turned
away and became absorbed in the scene around him.

It was not cheering. Though the summer sun was high and powerful, it
failed to touch the broken pavement of Grubb's Court, or to dry up the
moisture which oozed from it and crept up the walls of the surrounding
houses. Everything was very old, very rotten, very crooked, and very
dirty. The doorways round the court were wide open--always open--in
some cases, because of there being no doors; in other cases, because the
tenements to which they led belonged to a variety of families, largely
composed of children who could not, even on tiptoe, reach or manipulate
door-handles. Nursing mothers of two feet high were numerous,
staggering about with nurslings of a foot and a half long. A few of the
nurslings, temporarily abandoned by the premature mothers, lay
sprawling--in some cases squalling--on the moist pavement, getting over
the ground like large snails, and leaving slimy tracks behind them.
Little boys, of the "City Arab" type, were sprinkled here and there, and
one or two old women sat on door-steps contemplating the scene, or
conversing with one or two younger women. Some of the latter were busy
washing garments so dirty, that the dirty water of old Father Thames
seemed quite a suitable purifier.

"Gillie," cried one of the younger women referred to, wiping the
soap-suds from her red arms, "come here, you bad, naughty boy. W'ere
'ave you bin? I want you to mind baby."

"W'y, mother," cried the small boy--who answered to the name of
Gillie--"don't you see I'm engaged? I'm a-showin' this 'ere sea-capp'n
the course he's got to steer for port. He wants to make the cabin of
old mother Roby."

"W'y don't you do it quickly, then?" demanded Gillie's mother, "you bad,
naughty, wicked boy. Beg your parding, sir," she added, to the seaman,
"the boy 'an't got no sense, besides bein' wicked and naughty--'e ain't
'ad no train', sir, that's w'ere it is, all along of my 'avin' too much
to do, an' a large family, sir, with no 'usband to speak of; right up
the stair, sir, to the top, and along the passage-door straight before
you at the hend of it. Mind the step, sir, w'en you gits up. Go up
with the gentleman, you bad, wicked, naughty boy, and show--"

The remainder of the sentence became confused in distance, as the b