hen we had gone
through Temple Bar, instead of keeping on down Fleet Street, we jolted
into Chancery Lane. This roused me.

"My friend has warned you that he has no money," I said, "and no more
have I."

The bailiff regarded me shrewdly.

"Ay," he replied, "I know. But I has seen many stripes o' men in my
time, my masters, and I know them to trust, and them whose silver I must
feel or send to the Fleet."

I told him unreservedly my case, and that he must take his chance of
being paid; that I could not hear from America for three months at
least. He listened without much show of attention, shaking his head from
side to side.

"If you ever cheated a man, or the admiral here either, then I begin
over again," he broke in with decision; "it is the fine sparks from the
clubs I has to watch. You'll not worry, sir, about me. Take my oath I'll
get interest out of you on my money."

Unwilling as we both were to be beholden to a bailiff, the alternative
of the Fleet was too terrible to be thought of. And so we alighted after
him with a shiver at the sight of the ugly, grimy face of the house, and
the dirty windows all barred with double iron. In answer to a knock we
were presently admitted by a turnkey to a vestibule as black as a tomb,
and the heavy outer door was locked behind us. Then, as the man cursed
and groped for the keyhole of the inner door, despair laid hold of me.

Once inside, in the half light of a narrow hallway, a variety of noises
greeted our ears,--laughter from above and below, interspersed with
oaths; the click of billiard balls, and the occasional hammering of
a pack of cards on a bare table before the shuffle. The air was close
almost to suffocation, and out of the coffee room, into which I glanced,
came a heavy cloud of tobacco smoke.

"Why, my masters, why so glum?" said the bailiff; "my inn is not such a
bad place, and you'll find ample good company here, I promise you."

And he led us into a dingy antechamber littered with papers, on every
one of which, I daresay, was written a tragedy. Then he inscribed
our names, ages, descriptions, and the like in a great book, when we
followed him up three flights to a low room under the eaves, having but
one small window, and bare of furniture save two narrow cots for beds, a
broken chair, and a cracked mirror. He explained that cash boarders got
better, and added that we might be happy we were not in the Fleet.

"We dine at two here, gentlemen, and sup a