ke came out of his office, and
directing one of his porters to bring along the boy's trunk, took Owen
by the hand, and having tucked a thick cotton umbrella under his other
arm, led him out. They trudged along through numerous dirty streets and
alleys, teeming with a ragged and unkempt population, and redolent of
unsavoury odours, until they emerged into a wide thoroughfare.

"Call a coach, boy!" said Mr Fluke, the first words he had spoken since
he had left the office. "How am I to do that, sir?" asked Owen.

"Shout `Coach,' and make a sign with your hand to the first you see."

"Will the coach come up, sir, if I call it?" asked Owen.

"Of course, if the driver hears you," answered Mr Fluke in a sharp
tone. "The boy may be a good arithmetician, but he knows nothing of
London life," he muttered to himself. "To be sure, how should he? But
he must learn--he will in time, I suppose; I once knew no more than he
does."

Owen saw several coaches passing, and he shouted to them at the top of
his voice, but no one took the slightest notice of him. At length the
driver of a tumble-down looking vehicle, with a superb coat of arms on
the panel, made a signal in return and drew up near the pavement.

"You will know how to call a coach in future," said Mr Fluke. "Step
in."

The porter, who had been watching proceedings, not having ventured to
interfere by assisting Owen, put the box in, after Mr Fluke had taken
his seat, and then told the coachman where to drive to. The latter,
applying his whip to the flanks of his horses, made them trot off, for a
few minutes, at a much faster rate than they were accustomed to move at.
They soon, however, resumed their usual slow pace, and not until Mr
Fluke put his head out of the window, and shouted, "Are you going to
sleep, man?" did he again make use of his whip.

"You must learn to find your way on foot, boy," said Mr Fluke. "I do
not take a coach every day; it would be setting a bad example. I never
yet drove up to the counting-house, nor drove away in one, since I
became a partner of old Paul Kelson, and he, it is my belief, never got
into one in his life, until he was taken home in a fit just before his
death."

Owen thought he should have great difficulty in finding his way through
all those streets, but he made no remark on the subject, determining to
note the turnings as carefully as he could, should he accompany Mr
Fluke the next morning back to Wapping.

The coac