thing!'

"I do b'lieve it was that as indooced me to give in. I went an' saw
this lavatory, an' I was so took up with it that I washed my hands in
every bason in the place--one arter the other--an' used up ever so much
soap, an'--would you believe it?--my hands wasn't clean after all! Yes,
it's one the wery best things in Portsm'uth, is Miss Robinson's
Welcome--"

"Miss Robinson again!" exclaimed Miles.

"Ay--wot have you got to find fault wi' Miss Robinson?" demanded the
sailor sternly.

"No fault to find at all," replied Miles, suffering himself to be
hurried away by his new friend; "but wherever I have gone since arriving
in Portsmouth her name has cropped up!"

"In Portsmouth!" echoed the sailor. "Let me tell you, young man, that
wherever you go all over the world, if there's a British soldier there,
Miss Sarah Robinson's name will be sure to crop up. Why, don't you know
that she's `The Soldiers' Friend'?"

"I'm afraid I must confess to ignorance on the point--yet, stay, now you
couple her name with `The Soldier's Friend,' I have got a faint
remembrance of having heard it before. Have I not heard of a Miss
Weston, too, in connection with a work of some sort among sailors?"

"Ay, no doubt ye have. She has a grand Institoot in Portsm'uth too, but
she goes in for sailors _only_--all over the kingdom--w'ereas Miss
Robinson goes in for soldiers an' sailors both, though mainly for the
soldiers. She set agoin' the _Sailors' Welcome_ before Miss Weston
began in Portsm'uth, an' so she keeps it up, but there ain't no
opposition or rivalry. Their aims is pretty much alike, an' so they
keep stroke together wi' the oars. But I'll tell you more about that
when you get inside. Here we are! There's the dock-gates, you see, and
that's Queen Street, an' the _Welcome's_ close at hand. It's a teetotal
house, you know. All Miss Robinson's Institoots is that."

"Indeed! How comes it, then, that a man--excuse me--`three sheets in
the wind,' can gain admittance?"

"Oh! as to that, any sailor or soldier may get admittance, even if he's
as drunk as a fiddler, if he on'y behaves his-self. But they won't
supply drink on the premises, or allow it to be brought in--'cept inside
o' you, of coorse. Cause why? you can't help that--leastwise not
without the help of a stomach-pump. Plenty o' men who ain't abstainers
go to sleep every night at the _Welcome_, 'cause they find the beds and
other things so comfortable. In fac