omen, and children.
Amongst the first, Rattling Bill Simkin walked to the front--his moral
courage restored to an equality with his physical heroism--and put down
his name. So did Johnson and Sutherland--the former as timid before the
audience as he had been plucky before the Soudanese, but walking erect,
nevertheless, as men do when conscious that they are in the right; the
latter "as bold as brass"--as if to defy the world in arms to make him
ever again drink another drop of anything stronger than tea.

Moses Pyne also "put on the blue," although, to do him justice, he
required no protection of that sort, and so did Corporal Flynn and
Terence and their mother--which last, if truth must be told, stood more
in need of the pledge than her stout sons.

Among the civilians several noted personages were influenced in the
right direction. Chief among these was sodden, blear-eyed, disreputable
Sloper, whose trembling hand scrawled a hieroglyphic, supposed to
represent his name, which began indeed with an S, but ended in a
mysterious prolongation, and was further rendered indecipherable by a
penitent tear which fell upon it from the point of his red, red nose!

Some people laughed, and said that there was no use in getting Sloper to
put on the blue-ribbon, that he was an utterly demoralised man, that he
had no strength of character, that no power on earth could save _him_!
They were right. No power on earth could save him--or them! These
people forgot that it is not the righteous but sinners who are called to
repentance.

Time passed away and wrought its wonted changes. Among other things, it
brought back to Portsmouth big, burly Jack Molloy, as hearty and
vigorous as he was when being half-hanged in the Soudan, but--_minus_ a
leg! Poor Jack! a spent cannon-ball--would that it had been spent in
vain!--removed it, below the knee, much more promptly than it could have
been taken off by the surgeon's knife. But what was loss to the Royal
Navy was gain to Portsmouth, for Jack Molloy came home and devoted
himself, heart and soul, to the lending of "a helping hand" to his
fellow-creatures in distress--devoting his attentions chiefly to the
region lying round Nobbs Lane, and causing himself to be adored
principally by old women and children. And there and thus he probably
works to this day--at least, some very like him do.

When not thus engaged he is prone to take a cruise to a certain rural
district in the south of Eng