don! What heaps of people, and what
wonderful sights!"

"Yes," the apprentice said carelessly. "But you have as yet seen
nothing. You should see the giant with eight heads, at the Guildhall."

"A giant with eight heads?" Henry exclaimed wonderingly. "Why, he have
five more than the giant whom my mother told me of when I was little,
that was killed by Jack, the Giant Killer. I must go and sea him of a
surety.'"

"You must mind," the apprentice said; "for a boy is served up for him
every morning for breakfast."

"Now you are trying to fool me," Harry said. "My mother warned me that
the boys of London were wickedly disposed, and given to mock at
strangers. But I tell thee, Master Jacob, that I have a heavy fist, and
was considered a fighter in the village. Therefore, mind how thou triest
to fool me. Mother always said I was not such a fool as I looked."

"You may well be that," Jacob said, "and yet a very big fool. But at
present I do not know whether your folly is more than skin deep, and
methinks that the respectable trader, your uncle, has taught you more
than how to eat like a Christian."

Harry felt at once that in this sharp boy he had a critic far more
dangerous than any he was likely to meet elsewhere. Others would pass
him unnoticed; but his fellow-apprentice would criticise every act and
word, and he felt somewhat disquieted to find that he had fallen under
such supervision. It was now, he felt, all-important for him to discover
what were the real sentiments of the boy, and whether he was trustworthy
to his master, and to be relied upon to keep the secret which had fallen
into his possession.

"I have been," he said, "in the big church at the end of this street.
What a pother the preachers do surely keep up there. I should be sorely
worried to hear them long, and would rather thrash out a load of corn
than listen long to the clacking of their tongues."

"Thou wilt be sicker still of them before thou hast done with them. It
is one of the duties of us apprentices to listen to the teachers, and if
I had my way, we would have an apprentices' riot, and demand to be kept
to the terms of our indentures, which say nothing about preachers. What
is the way of thinking of this uncle of yours?"

"He is a prudent man," Roger said, "and says but little. For myself, I
care nothing either way, and cannot understand what they are making this
pother about. So far as I can see, folks only want to be quiet, and do
their w