and utter confusion. The purse was empty.

"Oh, Harry--what shall I do? There were five shillings in it
when--. I counted them out and laid the purse on the table beside my
gloves. I was just picking them up when--when Archibald--"
Her voice failed again and she turned to the shop-woman. "Something
most unfortunate has happened. Will you, please, send for Mr.
Tucker? He will know me. I have been here on several previous
occasions--"

I had not the slightest notion of the price of eatables; but I, too,
turned on the shopwoman with a bold face, albeit with a fluttering
heart.

"How much?" I demanded.

"One-and-ninepence, sir."

I know not which made me the happier--relief, or the glory of being
addressed as "sir." I paid, pocketed my threepence change, and in
the elation of it offered Miss Plinlimmon my arm. We walked down
George Street, past the work-box in the window. I managed to pass
without wincing, though desperately afraid that the shopman might pop
out--it seemed but natural he should be lying in wait--and hold me to
my bargain.

Our session upon the Hoe, though uninterrupted, did not recapture the
dear abandonment of our first blissful birthday. Miss Plinlimmon
could neither forget the mishap to her purse, nor speak quite freely
about it. A week later she celebrated her redemption in the
following stanza:

"A friend in need is a friend indeed,
We have oft-times heard:
And King Richard the Third
Was reduced to crying, 'My kingdom for a horse!'
O, may we never want a friend!
'Or a bottle to give him,' I omit, as coarse."

She enclosed one-and-ninepence in the missive: and so obtained her
work-box after all--it being, by a miracle, still unsold.

CHAPTER VI.

I STUMBLE INTO HORRORS.

It was exactly seven weeks later--that is to say, on the evening
of June 18th, 1811--that as I stood in the doorway whistling
_Come, cheer up, my lads_, to Mrs. Trapp's tame blackbird, the old
Jew slop-dealer came shuffling up the alley and demanded word with my
master.

His name was Rodriguez--"I. Rodriguez, Marine Stores"--and his shop
stood at the corner of the Barbican as you turn into Southside
Street. He had an extraordinarily fine face, narrow, emaciated, with
a noble hook to his nose (which was neither pendulous nor fleshy) and
a black pointed beard divided by a line of grey. We boys feared him,
one and all: but in a furred cloak and skull-cap he wou