wered the sailor.
"Lagged that there dratted baby the whole way. I'll have another
glass of beer."

"And what distance are you going?" asked the lanky man.

"I shall put into the next port for the night, and tomorrow on to
Portsmouth, and stow away the kid with my wife's sister. Lord! I
wishes the morrer were well over."

"We're bound for Portsmouth," said the man in tatters. "What say
you? shall we keep company and relieve you of the kid? If you'll
pay the shot here and at the other end, and at the other pubs--can't
say but what we'll ease you."

"It's a bargain," exclaimed the sailor. "By George! I've had
enough of it from Lun'non here. As to money, look here," he put
his hand into his trousers pocket and pulled out a handful of
coins, gold, silver and copper together. "There is brass for all.
Just home, paid off--and find my wife dead--and me saddled with
the yowling kid. I'm off to sea again. Don't see no sport
wider-erring here all bebothered with a baby."

"We are very willing to accompany you," said the tattered man, and
turning to the fellow with sallow face and lantern jaws, he said,
"What's your opinion, Lonegon?"

"I'm willing, Marshall; what say you, Michael Casey?"

"Begorra--I'm the man to be a wet nuss."

The sailor called for spirits wherewith to treat the men who had
offered their assistance.

"This is a mighty relief to me," said he. "I don't think I could
ha' got on by myself."

"You've no expayrience, sir," said Casey. "It's I'm the boy for
the babbies. Ye must rig up a bottle and fill it with milk, and
just a whisk of a drop of the craytur to prevent it curdling, and
then stuff the mouth with a rag--and the darlin'll suck, and suck,
and be still as the evenin' star as I sees yonder glimmering at
the window."

"You'll have to start pretty sharp if you want to get on a stage
before dark," said the man by the fire.

"It's a lone road," threw in the boy shyly.

"What's the odds when we are four of us?" asked the man whose name
was Lonegon.

"And all of us pertecting the little cherub from ketching cold,"
threw in Casey.

"We ain't afraid--not we," said the ragged man.

"Not of bogies, at any rate."

"Oh, you need not fear bogies," observed the man at the fire, dryly.

"What is it, then?" asked Michael Casey. "Sure It's not highwaymen?"

The man by the fire warmed his palms, laughed, and said: "It would
take two to rob you, I guess, one to put the money into your pocket
and th