finds its nightly level.

Here he knocked with trembling hand. He was received; he was put in a
lukewarm bath and washed; he was fed on gruel and a bit of bread--quite
sufficient to allay the cravings of hunger; he was shown to a room in
which appeared to be a row of corpses--so dead was the silence--each
rolled in a covering of some dark brown substance, and stretched out
stiff on a trestle with a canvas bottom. One of the trestles was empty.
He was told he might appropriate it.

"Are they dead?" he asked, looking round with a shudder.

"Not quite," replied his jailer, with a short laugh, "but dead-beat most
of 'em--tired out, I should say, and disinclined to move."

Sam Twitter fell on the couch, drew the coverlet over him, and became a
brown corpse like the rest, while the guardian retired and locked the
door to prevent the egress of any who might chance to come to life
again.

In the morning Sam had a breakfast similar to the supper; was made to
pick oakum for a few hours by way of payment for hospitality, and left
with a feeling that he had at last reached the lowest possible depth of
degradation.

So he had in that direction, but there are other and varied depths in
London--depths of crime and of sickness, as well as of suffering and
sorrow!

Aimlessly he wandered about for another day, almost fainting with
hunger, but still so ashamed to face his father and mother that he would
rather have died than done so.

Some touch of pathos, or gruff tenderness mayhap, in Ned Frog's voice,
induced him to return at night to the scene of his discreditable
failure, and await the pugilist's coming out. He followed him a short
way, and then running forward, said--

"Oh, sir! I'm very low!"

"Hallo! Signor Twittorini again!" said Ned, wheeling round, sternly.
"What have I to do with your being low? I've been low enough myself at
times, an' nobody helped--"

Ned checked himself, for he knew that what he said was false.

"I think I'm dying," said Sam, leaning against a house for support.

"Well, if you do die, you'll be well out of it all," replied Ned,
bitterly. "What's your name?"

"Twitter," replied Sam, forgetting in his woe that he had not intended
to reveal his real name.

"Twitter--Twitter. I've heard that name before. Why, yes. Father's
name Samuel--eh? Mother alive--got cards with Mrs Samuel Twitter on
'em, an' no address?"

"Yes--yes. How do you come to know?" asked Sam in surprise.

"N