on board; and, as sure as I stand here, he'll whack me. He will
pay you, you may take my word for it."

"Your word, Nancy!" replied Mrs Chopper, shaking her head.

"Stop a moment," said Nancy, coming down the side with very little
regard as to showing her well-formed legs; "stop, Mrs Chopper, and I'll
explain to you."

"It's no use coming down, Nancy, I tell you," replied Mrs Chopper.

"Well, we shall see," replied Nancy, taking her seat in the boat, and
looking archly in Mrs Chopper's face; "the fact is Mrs Chopper, you
don't know what a good-tempered woman you are."

"I know, Nancy, what you are," replied Mrs Chopper.

"Oh, so does everybody: I'm nobody's enemy but my own, they say."

"Ah! that's very true, child; more's the pity."

"Now, I didn't come down to wheedle you out of anything, Mrs Chopper,
but merely to talk to you, and look at this pretty boy."

"There you go, Nancy; but ain't he like Peter?"

"Well, and so he is! very like Peter; he has Peter's eyes and his nose,
and his mouth is exactly Peter's--how very strange!"

"I never see'd such a likeness!" exclaimed Mrs Chopper.

"No, indeed," replied Nancy, who, by agreeing with Mrs Chopper in all
she said, and praising Joey, and his likeness to Peter, at last quite
came over the old bumboat-woman; and Nancy quitted her boat with the two
herrings, the loaf; and the paper of tobacco.

"Shall I put them down, Mrs Chopper?" said Joey.

"Oh, dear," replied Mrs Chopper, coming to her recollection, "I'm
afraid that it's no use; but put them down, anyhow; they will do for bad
debts. Shove off, William, we must go to the large ship now."

"I do wish that that Nancy was at any other port," exclaimed Mrs
Chopper, as they quitted the vessel's side; "I do lose so much money by
her."

"Well," said the waterman, laughing, "you're not the only one; she can
wheedle man or woman, or, as they say, the devil to boot, if she would
try."

During the whole of the day the wherry proceeded from ship to ship,
supplying necessaries; in many instances they were paid for in ready
money, in others Joey's capabilities were required, and they were booked
down against the customers. At last, about five o'clock in the evening,
the beer-barrel being empty, most of the contents of the baskets nearly
exhausted, and the wherry loaded with the linen for the wash, biscuits,
empty bottles, and various other articles of traffic or exchange, Mrs
Chopper ordered William, the wate