" George said, "and I could manage a drink of water if I could
get one."

"There's a fountain handy," Bill said; "but you come along with me, I
am agoing to stand two cups of coffee if yer aint too proud to take
it;" and he looked doubtfully at his companion.

"I am not at all too proud," George said, for he saw that the
slightest hesitation would hurt his companion's feelings.

"It aint fust-rate coffee," Bill said, as with a brightened look on
his face he turned and led the way to a little coffee-stall; "but it's
hot and sweet, and yer can't expect more nor that for a penny."

George found the coffee really better than he had expected, and Bill
was evidently very much gratified at his expression of approval.

"Now," he said, when they had both finished, "for a draw of 'baccy,"
and he produced a short clay pipe. "Don't yer smoke?"

"No, I haven't begun yet."

"Ah! ye don't know what a comfort a pipe is," Bill said. "Why, when
yer are cold and hungry and down on your luck a pipe is a wonderful
thing, and so cheap; why, a ounce of 'baccy will fill yer thirty pipes
if yer don't squeeze it in too hard. Well, an ounce of 'baccy costs
threepence halfpenny, so, as I makes out, yer gets eight pipes for a
penny; and now," he went on when he had filled and lit his pipe,
"let's know what's yer game."

"You mean what am I going to do?" George asked.

Bill nodded.

"I want to get employment in some sort of works. I have been an
errand-boy in a grocer's for more than a year, and I have got a
written character from my master in my pocket; but I don't like the
sort of thing; I would rather work with my own hands. There are plenty
of works where they employ boys, and you know one might get on as one
gets older. The first thing is to find out whereabouts works of that
sort are."

"There are lots of works at the East End, I have heard tell," Bill
said; "and then there's Clerkenwell and King's Cross, they aint so far
off, and there are works there, all sorts of works, I should say; but
I don't know nuffin' about that sort of work. The only work as I have
done is holding hosses and carrying plants into the market, and
sometimes when I have done pretty well I goes down and lays out what I
got in _Echoes_, or _Globes_, or _Evening Standards_; that pays yer,
that does, for if yer can sell them all yer will get a bob for eight
penn'orth of papers, that gives yer fourpence for an hour's work, and
I calls that blooming good, and ca