With an ostentatious farewell, the excellent Blackey stumped off, and the four remaining revellers became staid.

"'Ard times," said the ferret-faced man; "but we've 'ad one good night out on it anyways."

"How do you make your living, may I ask, if that's a fair question, mate?" This question was addressed by me to the sly man, and he was embarrassed.

"Livin'! 'Taint no livin'. It's lingerin'. Leastways it would be if it wasn't for my gell, Tilley, there. 'Er and 'er 'usban' gives us a 'and; an' if you've got a bit about you you might 'elp us put our copper to rights. Got a thick 'un? I'll pay it back, s'elp me Gord, if the missus can start laundryin' agin'."

I saw that this meant "Show us which pocket you keep your money in," so I shamelessly said, "I'll put that square in the morning, governor." Then some silly small-talk—petty as children's babble, low as the cackle of the bar—went on, and I found myself somehow left alone with the snub-nosed young person. She was evidently in some trouble, and I was the more interested about her in that I chanced to look at a side window, and found the fat, carnivorous woman and the down-looking man surveying us with interest, under the impression that they were invisible.

Now, I have never cared for talking to girls of her class, for I do not like them. All talk about soiled doves and the rest is mere nauseous twaddle, arising from ignorance. The creatures take to their rackety life because they like it, and, though I have met some good and kind members of their class, I have observed that the majority are rapacious, cruel, and devoid of every human sentiment that does not hinge on hunger or vanity. You may treat a man as an equal in spite of his vices, and do no harm, but to treat a woman as an equal because of her vices is worse than folly. This silly creature proposed to brush my hair. I had encouraged her to familiarity, so I did not object to the toilet process, but I did most strongly object to sniffing at a bottle which she said would "freshen me up amazing." She withdrew the cork, and memories of the college laboratory struck at my brain with sudden violence on the instant. The unforgettable odour of ethyllic chloride caught at my nerves, and I politely rose.

"Pardon me, I must go. It will be daylight in half an hour," I said, for I saw that merry Miss Tilley had been ready to supplement Blackey's device by a second trick.

"I'll come with you a little way. You're dotty a bit."

I reached the fresh air and quietly said, "No, you mustn't. The men are going to factory up by the Fawcett-road, and every second man we meet will know us."

Miss Tilley muttered something, but she preserved her smile and only said, "I tell my husband as you took care of us."

As I stole through the heavy fog I thought, "Now, what business had I there? If my mother had seen that wretched servant girl brushing my hair the old lady would have died—I, the child of many prayers, the hope of a house, and stumping home on a foggy morning after sitting among the scum of earth all night. I mean to be a philosopher, but what a beastly, silly school to cultivate political philosophy in! What do I know more than I knew before?—that one vulgar girl maintains three vulgar criminals, and that all the four will come whining to the workhouse when the game is played out and they can rob no one else. They are creatures whose vices and idleness and general villany are engendered amid drink. They are the foul fungi that fatten on the walls of the public-house; that is all. And I have given them more drink only to see them plan a robbery. Seventy thousand of them in London? Yes. But supposing a few thousands of us, instead of being indifferent, instead of 'exploring' in my harum-scarum way, go to work and try to give these creatures a chance of living human lives? What then? Would Blackey or the girl or the wicked old folk have gone to the bar and eaten away their morality with alcohol if they had not been driven out by the stinking dulness of that kitchen? I don't know. I only know that when this spell is over I shall have some corrections to address to the people who stick up institutes, and organise charitable funds. I can offer myself as the horrid example, if they like, and that should impress them."

Then my musings were checked, for I had to cross a wooden bridge over the odious stream that poisoned Teddy, and the fog was like flying gruel. Carefully I picked my way over the bridge, and aimed for the dark, narrow lane that led towards my abode. I remember thinking, "What a place this would be if we were troubled with footpads!" Then came a pause. Now you know how sound travels in a fog? I saw two posts standing shadowily before me; then the posts appeared to fade away, or to be closed up in the brown haze; then I distinctly heard a whisper, "He ain't got her with him. You come after me." I was stooping, and peering to find out who whispered. Wrench! I grasped at my neck. Crack! A sound like the clanking of chains rattled in my head; a flash of many coloured flame shot before my eyes; a hundred memories came vividly to me, and I thought I was a boy again, and then I remember no more, until some voice said, "Feelin' better?"

I was a little sick, and my head was bleeding, but otherwise I had suffered no harm, and I could walk. It was as though I had received a knock-down blow in a fight, and that does not hurt one for long. But how lucky that the water was out of the mill stream! I had been pitched into about six inches of water, and a policeman who heard the splash jumped over some rails, and cut across a private paddock in time to save me from being smothered in the mud. It is now midnight; I have a man with me, and I am not quite so vigorous as I could wish, but my head is clear, and to-morrow there will only be the criss-cross mass of sticking-plaster to tell that I have been felled and robbed. I shall try to pay Mr. Blackey out. Meantime the police and public should remember that many men in London pick up a living by arranging humorous little midnight interviews like that which I went through. Only the professionals work on the Thames Embankment, and the "bashed" man, instead of going into six inches of mud, never is heard of again till his carcass is brought before the coroner.



ONE OF OUR ENTERTAINMENTS.

We have lately had "sport" brought to our very doors, and a pretty crew offered themselves for my study. In the diseased life of the city many odious human types are developed, but none are so horrible as those that crop up at sporting gatherings of various sorts. I have never doubted the existence of an impartial, beneficent Ruling Power save when I have been among the scum of the sporting meetings. At those times I often failed to understand why a good God could permit beings to remain on earth whose very presence seems at once to insult the pure sky and the memory of Christ. If you go away for a few weeks and live among simple fishermen or hinds you become proud of your countrymen. On wild nights, when the black waves galloped down on our vessel and crashed along our decks, I have felt my heart glow as I watched the cool seamen picking up their ropes and working deftly on amid the roaring darkness. The fishers are sober, splendid men, who face death with never a tremor, and toil on usefully day after day. Come away from their broad, sane simplicity and courage, and look upon the infamous hounds who are bred in the congested regions—you are sickened and depressed.

I notice that the sporting gang talk only of betting, thieving, whoremongering, or fighting. With regard to the latter pursuit, their views are distinctly peculiar. A sudden, murderous rush in a crowded bar, a quick, sly blow, and a run away—that is their notion of a manly combat. In the days of the Tipton Slasher two Englishmen would fight fairly like bulldogs for an hour at a stretch; no man thought of crowing about a chance bit of bloodshed, or even a knock-down, for it was understood that the combatants should fight on until one could not rise; then they shook hands, and were friends. But the brutes whom I now see are transformed Englishmen; they know that a fair upstanding contest would not suit them, and their object is to land one cunning blow, then to make as much noise as possible so as to attract attention. It is cruelly funny to see a gaping blackguard, who has chanced to give someone a black eye or a swollen nose, swaggering round like an absurd bantam, and posing as a sort of athletic champion. The gang are nearly always full of stories about their miserable scrambling fights, and anyone might fancy he had got among a regular corps of paladins to hear them vapour. One marvellously vile betting person haunts me like a disease. The animal has a head like a sea-urchin, his lips are blubbery, his tongue is too big for his mouth, and his face is like one that you see in a nightmare. The ugly head is stuck on a body which resembles a sack of rancid engine grease. This beauty is a fairly representative specimen of our bold sportsmen. He is a deft swindler, and I have gazed with blank innocence while he rooked some courageous simpleton at tossing. The fat, rancid man can do almost as he chooses with a handful of coins, and the marvellous celerity with which sovereigns or halfpence glide between his podgy fingers is quite fascinating. On the subjects of adultery and fighting this object is great, and his foul voice resounds greasily amid our meetings of brave sportsmen. He is accompanied by a choice selection of gay spirits, and I take leave to say that the popular conception of hell is quite barren and poor compared with the howling reality that we can show on any day when a little "sport" is to the fore. I am tolerant enough, but I do seriously think that there are certain assemblies which might be wiped out with advantage to the world by means of a judicious distribution of prussic acid.

Among my weaknesses must be numbered a strong fancy for keeping dogs of various breeds. When you come to understand the animals you can make friends of them, and I have lived in perfect contentment for months at a stretch with no company but my terriers. A favourite terrier often goes about with me now, and the other day Mr. Landlord said, with insinuating softness, "We must have your pup entered for our coursing meeting." It mattered little to me one way or the other, so I paid the entrance fee, and forgot all about the engagement. Coursing with terriers is a very popular "sport" in the south country, and the squat little white-and-tan dogs are bred with all the care that used to be bestowed on fine strains of greyhounds. I cannot quite see where the sport comes in, but many men of all classes enjoy it, and I have no mind to find fault with a remarkable institution which has taken fast root in England. All coursing is cruel; a hare suffers the extremity of agony from the moment when she hears the thud of the dogs' feet until she is whirled round and shaken in those deadly jaws. I lay once amongst straggling furze while a hare and two greyhounds rushed down towards me. Puss had travelled a mile on a Suffolk marsh, and she was failing fast. As she neared me the greyhounds made a violent effort, and the foremost one struck just opposite my hiding-place. Never in my life have I seen such a picture of agony; the poor little beast wrung herself sharp round with a scream—such a scream!—and the dog only succeeded in snatching a mouthful of fur. He lay down, and the hare hobbled into the cover. I could see her tremble. The same sort of torture is inflicted when hares are bundled out of an enclosure with the rapidity and precision of machinery. There is a wild flurry, an agony of one minute or so, and all is over.

The mystery of man's cruelty is inexplicable to me; I feel the mad blood pouring hard when the quarry rushes away, and the snaky dogs dash from the slips; no thought of pity enters my mind for a time because the mysterious wild-man instinct possesses me, and so I suppose that the primeval hunter is ignobly represented by the people who go to see rabbit coursing. We have been refining and refining, and educating the people for a good while; yet our popular sports seems to grow more and more cruel. We do not bait bulls now, but we worry hares and rabbits by the gross, we massacre scores of pretty pigeons—sweet little birds that are slaughtered without a sign of fair play.

Decidedly the Briton likes the savour of blood to mingle with his pleasures. A thousand of ordinary men will gather at Gateshead or Hanley and howl with delight when two wiry whippets worry a stupefied rabbit. They are decent fellows in their way, and they generally have a rigid idea of fairness; but they fail to see the unfairness of hooking a rabbit out of a sack and setting him to run for his life in an enclosure from which he cannot possibly escape. Pastimes that do not involve the death of something or the wagering of money are accounted tame. It is one of the riddles that make me wish I could not think at all. I give it up, for I am only a Loafer, and the dark problems of existence are beyond me.

Perhaps they are beyond Mr. Herbert Spencer.

Our ragged regiment met in a wide, quiet field. Nearly all my costers were about, and they cried "Wayo!" with cordiality. Half the company on the field could not muster threepence in the world; many of them were probably hungry; many were far gone in drink; but all were eager for "sport." We shall have some talk presently about the bitter ennui of the poor man's life. The existence of that deadly ennui never was brought before me so vividly as it was when I saw that queer multitude, forgetting hunger, cold, poverty, pain—and forgetting because they were about to see some rabbits worried!

On a low stand stood a broad pair of scales and an immense hamper. The stand was watched by a red-faced merryandrew, who gibbered and yelled in a vigorous manner. A funny reprobate is that old person. Every hour of his life is given over to the search for excitement; he is never dull; he has a cheery word for all whom he meets; he will drink, fight, and even make love, with all the ardour of youth. When there is nothing more exciting to do, he will drive a trotter for twenty miles at break-neck pace. When he dies, his life's work may be easily summed up:—He drank so many quarts of ale; he killed so many pigeons and rabbits. Nothing more.

My terrier made a ferocious dash at the big hamper, and I knew that our victims were there. Presently the dogs began to arrive, and I was amazed and amused to see some of the little brutes. They could no more catch a rabbit on fair ground than they could pull down a locomotive; but the long railway journey, the strange field, and the clamorous mob render poor Bunny almost helpless, and he gives up his life only too easily. The best of the terriers were beautiful wretches with iron muscles and a general air of courageous wickedness. Their bloodthirstiness was appalling; they knew exactly what was to happen, and their sharp yells of rapture made a din that set my head swimming. Each of them writhed and strained at the collar, and I caught myself wondering what the poor rabbits thought (can they think?) as they heard the wild chiming of that demon pack. In the country, when a dog gives tongue Bunny sits up and twirls his ears uneasily; then, even if the bark is heard from afar off, the little brown beast darts underground. Alas! there is no friendly burrow in this bleak field, and there is no chance of escape; for the merry roughs will soon finish any rabbit that shows the dogs a clean pair of heels.

The ceremony of weighing was completed in a dignified way, and the first brace of dogs went to the slipper. One was a sprightly smooth terrier, with a long, richly-marked head; he was quivering with anticipation, and his demeanour offered a marked contrast to that of the dour, composed brute pitted against him. The rabbit was lifted out of the hamper by one of those greasy nondescript males, who are always to be seen when pigeon shooting or coursing is going on. The greasy being held the rabbit by the ears, and put it temptingly near the dogs. The sprightly terrier went clean demented; the sullen one stood with thoughtful earnestness waiting for a chance to catch the start. When the rabbit was put down it cowered low and seemed trying to shrink into the ground; its ears were pressed hard back, its head was pressed closely to the grass, and it was huddled in an ecstasy of terror. Of course that is quite usual, but we practical sportsmen cannot waste time over the sentimental terrors of a rabbit. The greasy man uttered a howl, and Bunny started up, ran in a circle, and then set off for the fence. I was struck by the animal's mode of running. For hours I have watched them feeding, at early morning or sundown, and I have noticed that as they shifted from place to place they moved with a slow kind of hop, gathering their hind legs under them at each stride. When Bunny is on his own ground he is one of the fastest of four-footed things. He lays himself down to the ground, and travels at such a terrific pace for about forty yards that he looks like a mere streak on the ground. I never yet saw a terrier that could turn a rabbit unless Bunny was imprudent enough to wander more than one hundred yards from home. But this wretched brute in our field was moving at the pace proper to feeding time, and, judging by its deliberate sluggishness, it seemed to be inviting death. When the short pitter-patter of the terriers' feet sounded on the grass, Bunny made a clumsy attempt to quicken his pace; the leading dog plunged at him, and by a convulsive effort the rabbit managed to swirl round and get clear. Then the second dog shot in; then came one or two quick, nervous jerks from side to side; then the beaten creature faltered, and was instantly seized and swung into the air. A good wild rabbit would have been half-way across the next field, but that unhappy invalid had no chance.

The other courses were of much the same character, for the rabbit, being used to run on a beaten path, has not the resource and dexterity of the hare. One strong specimen distanced the pair of tiny weeds that were set after him, but the pack of roughs were whooping at the border of the field, and the doomed rabbit was soon clutched and pocketed.

The betting was furious; a few hard-faced, well-dressed men did their wagering quietly and to heavy amounts, but the mob yelled and squabbled and cursed after their usual manner, and they were all ready to drink when we returned. This is a fair description of rabbit coursing, and I leave influential persons to decide as to whether or no it is a useful or improving form of entertainment. I have my doubts, but must be severely impartial. I will say this, however, that if any one of us had spent the afternoon over a good novel, or something of that kind, he would have been taken out of himself, and, when he rose, his mind would have been filled with quiet and gracious thoughts. Our gang were suffering from a form of the lust for blood; they were thirsty, and they were possessed by that species of excitement which makes a man ready to turn savage on any, or no, provocation.

The bar was like the place of damned souls until eight o'clock: everybody roared at the top of his voice; nobody listened to anybody else, and everybody drank more or less feverishly. We had a supper to celebrate the destruction of the rabbits, and afterwards the truculent gentlemen, who had bellowed so vigorously in the field, sang sentimental songs about "Mother, dear mother," "Stay with me, my darling, stay," or patriotic songs referring to an article of drapery known as "The Flag of Old Hengland."

For half-an-hour our intricate choruses resounded as we went in groups deviously homeward, and a few members of our sporting flock dotted the paths at wide intervals.

That kind of thing goes on all over the country in the winter time. It is not for me to preach, but I must say that it seems to be a barren kind of game. Can any man of the crowd think kindly or clearly about any subject under the sun? I fancy not. My own real idea of the character of the various mobs that see the rabbits die is such that I could not venture to frame it in words. The sport is so mean, so trivial, so purposeless, that I should go a long way to avoid seeing it now that I know the subject well.

And that unspeakably atrocious pettiness forms the only relaxation of a very considerable number of Englishmen. If any member of a corporation were to propose that a great hall should be opened free, and that good music should be provided at the expense of the community, I suppose there would be a deal of grumbling; but I am ready to prove that expenses indirectly caused by our mad "sporting" would more than cover the cost of a rational spell of pleasure.

Honourable gentlemen and worthy aldermen are allowing a great mass of people to remain in a brutalised condition; those people only derive pleasure from the suffering of dumb creatures.

How will it be if the callous crew take it into their heads at some or other to show restiveness? Will they deal gently or thoughtfully with those against whom their enmity is turned? Certainly their education by no means tends to foster gentleness and thoughtfulness. If I were a statesman instead of a Loafer, I reckon I should try might and main to humanise those neglected folk—and they are neglected—before they teach some of us a terrific lesson.

I see that one "Walter Besant" has some capital notions concerning the subject which I have ventured to touch on. If he were a rough—as I am during much of my time—he would be able to talk more to the purpose. Still, I deliberately say that that novelist, who is often treated as a moony creature, is a very wise and practical statesman, and he has used his opportunities well. If powerful people do not very soon pay heed to his message, they will have reason for regret.

The worst of it is that one is constantly being forced to wonder whether culture is of any use. For instance, on the day after the coursing, I fell in with a smart lad who loafs about race meetings, and who sometimes visits the landlord's parlour at the Chequers. He has been a year out of Oxford, and he is rather a pretty hand at classics; yet he tries to look and talk like a jockey, and his mother has to keep him because he won't do any work. A shrewd little thing he is, and this is how we talked:—

"Shall I drive you over to the meeting to-morrow?"

"If you like."

"We can do a bit together if you'll dress yourself decently. Barrett says there's a new hunter coming out. It could win the Cesarewitch with 8st. 4lb., but they mean keeping his hunter's certificate. Put a bit on."

"Wait till we see."

"Lord! If I could get the mater to part—only a pony—I'd buy a satchel and start bookmaking in the half-crown ring myself. It's Tom Tiddler's ground if you've got a nut on you."

"Queer work for a 'Varsity man?"

"Deed sight better than bear-leading, or going usher in a school. Fun! Change! Fly about! What more do you want?"

"Do you like to hear the ring curse? Dick and Alf often make me goose-skinned."

"What matter, so you cop the ready?"

"Do you read now?"

"Not such a Juggins. I think my Oxford time was all wasted. Of course, I liked to hear Jowett palaver, and it was quiet and nice enough; but give me life. Bet all day; dinner at the Rainbow, Pav., or Trocadero, and Globe to finish up. That's life!"

If anyone had chances this youth had them, and now his ambition is to bet half-crowns with the riddlings of Creation. This universe is getting to be a little too much for me. Come down, pipe; I shall go in the Chequers parlour to-night, and play the settled citizen.



MERRY JERRY AND HIS FRIENDS.

I never saw such a cheerful face as Jerry's. Master Blackey can smile and smile; he can smile on me even now, though I know almost to a certainty that it was he who left that discoloured ring round my throat not long ago. But Blackey can scowl also, whereas Jerry never ceases to look benignant and jolly. He is a fine young fellow is Jerry, six feet high, straight as a lance, ruddy, clear-skinned, and with the bluest, brightest eye you can see. When he walks he is upright and stately as the best of Guardsmen, without any military stiffness; when he spars he is active as a leopard, and his mode of landing with his left is at once terrible and artistic. Sometimes he drinks a little too much, and then his sweet smile becomes fatuous, but he never is unpleasant. The girls from the factory admire him sincerely; they call him Merry Jerry, and he accepts their homage with serenity. He never takes the trouble to show any deference towards his admirers; their amorous glances and giggling are inevitable tributes to his fascinations, and he takes it all as a matter of course. Like Blackey and the Ramper, Jerry never does any work, and he is supposed to have private means. His speech is quite correct, and even elegant, and although he does not converse on exalted topics, he is a singularly pleasant companion in his way. Most of his talk is about horse-racing, and he never reads anything but the sporting papers. In that taste he resembles most of those who go to The Chequers. The wrangling, the cursing, the whispered confidences that make up the nightly volume of noise nearly all have reference to racing subjects. The raggedest wretch at the bar puts on horsey airs when any great race is to be decided; he may not know a horse from a mule, but he invariably volunteers his opinion, and if he can raise a shilling he backs his fancy. Polite gentlemen in Parliament and elsewhere do not appear to know that there are something like one million British adults whose chief interest in life (apart from their necessary daily work) is centred on racing. I think I know almost every town in England, and I never yet in all my wanderings settled at an inn without finding that betting of some sort or other formed the main subject of conversation. Hundreds of times—literally hundreds—I have known whole evenings devoted to discussing the odds. The gamblers were usually men who did not care to see horses gallop; they chatted about names, and that satisfied them. A clerk, a mechanic, a tradesman, a traveller, a publican asks his friend what he has done over such and such a race, just as he asks after the friend's health. It is taken for granted that everybody bets, and really intelligent fellows will stare at you in astonishment if you say that you are not interested in the result of a race. If I chose to make a book—only dealing in small sums—I could contrive to win a fair amount every week by merely "betting to figures." The bookmaker does not need to visit a racecourse; he is required to work out a sort of algebraical problem on each race, and, by exercising a little shrewdness, he may leave himself a small balance on every event. Small sums in silver are always forthcoming to almost any extent, and a clever man who has no more than L100 capital to start with may pitch his tent almost anywhere, and make sure of getting plenty of custom. People speak of the Italians as gamblers, but in Italy gambling is not nearly so prevalent as in England. In Manchester alone one sporting journal has a morning and evening edition, and there are daily papers in most of the large Yorkshire towns. In the North-country I have often watched the workmen during the breakfast half-hour, and found that they did not care a rush for anything in the paper save the sporting news. In London two great journals are published daily, and twice a week each of them issues a double number. Every line of these papers is devoted to sport, and each of them is a rich estate to the proprietor.

The mania for betting grows more acute every day, the number of wealthy bookmakers increases, and the national demoralisation has reached a depth which would seem inconceivable to anyone who has not lived with all sorts and conditions of men. A racing man is apt to become incapable of concentrating his mind on anything except his one pursuit. Hundreds of thoughtful and cultured people race a little and bet a little by way of relaxation; but these take no harm. It is the ignorant, ill-balanced folk, without higher interests, who suffer.

Well-meaning persons spend money on respectable institutes for working men, but the men do not care for staid, dull proceedings after their work is over; they want excitement. A moderately heavy bet supplies them with a topic for conversation; it gives them all the keen pleasures of anticipation as the day of the race draws near, and when they open the paper to see the final result they are thrilled just as a gambler is thrilled when he throws the dice. No wonder that the mild and moral places of recreation are left empty; no wonder that the public-houses are well filled. If I were asked to name two things which interest the English nation to the supreme degree, I should say—first, Sport; second, Drink. If the strongest Ministry that ever took office attempted to make betting a criminal offence, they would be turned out in a month. Betting is now not a casual amusement, but a serious national pursuit. The perfect honesty with which payments are made by agents is amazing. A man who bets on commission for others may have L100,000 to lay out on a race; every farthing is accounted for, and dishonesty among the higher grades of the betting brotherhood is practically unknown. It is this rigid observance of the point of honour that tempts people like our gang in The Chequers bar to risk their shillings; they know that if they make a right guess their payment is safe. The statesman who called the turf "a vast instrument of national demoralization" was quite right, and if he could have lived to take a tour round the country in this year of grace he would have seen the flower of his nation given over to mean frivolity.

Jerry has tutored me in racing matters. He has not a thought that is not derived from the columns of the sporting prints, and his life is passed mainly in searching like a staunch terrier for "certainties." When he is disposed to be communicative, he soon gathers quite an audience in The Chequers, and should he drop a phrase like "George Robinson said to me, 'I've made my own book for Highflyer,'" or "Charley White, the Duke's Motto, wouldn't lay Mountebank any more," the awe-stricken costers stare. Here is a man, a regular toff, and no error—a man who knows such Ringmen as Robinson and White—and yet he will speak to ordinary coves without exhibiting the least pride!

Jerry has taken me round to the best haunts where gallant sportsmen assemble, and for some mysterious reason, his escort has secured for me the most flattering deference. Queer holes he knows by the score. I thought I had seen most things; but I find I am a babe compared with Jerry. He once said to me, "Would you like to see a couple of lads set-to? Real good 'uns." I had seen a great number of encounters; but my two pounds handed over to Jerry procured me a sight of a battle which was the most desperate affair I ever witnessed. But for the close, oppressive atmosphere of the room where the fight took place, the whole business would have been interesting. The spectators were well dressed and well behaved, the boxers were beautiful athletes, and there was nothing repulsive about the swift exchange of lightning blows until the baking heat began to tell on the men; then it was disagreeable to see two gallant fellows panting and labouring for breath. We often hear that boxing is discredited. Rubbish! Ask Jerry about that, and you will learn that any company of men who care to subscribe L25 may see a combat wherein science, courage, and endurance are all displayed lavishly.

Jerry was much interested in dog fighting, which latter pleasing pastime is enjoyed quite freely in London to an extent that would amaze the gentlemen who rejoice over the decline of brutality in Britain.

The competitive instinct which once found vent in fighting and conquest now works on other lines. The Englishman must be engaged in a contest, or he is unhappy, and, since he cannot now compete sword to sword with his fellow-creatures, he fights purse to purse instead. All these things I knew in a vague way, but Jerry has made my knowledge definite and secure.

As for the man himself, I soon found that his "private means" were taken in various ways from other people's pockets. During a chat, he said, "You know you're not what you pretend to be. You hang about there, and you bet, but you never bet enough to make anything at it. You must have the coins, for I've seen you spend a quid in two hours in the skittle-alley. But you don't seem to best anybody. What is your game? You may as well tell me."

"I amuse myself in my own way, and I don't care to let the school know much about me."

"Well, my game's very simple. Only a juggins or a horse ever works, and I don't intend to do any. It's just as easy to be idle as not. You take the fellows in town that make their living after dark, and you always see them having good times. There's some red-hot ones up—you know where—in Piccadilly; they never get about till close on dinner time, but they make up for lost time when they are about. I should like to work with you. If you were to come out a bit flash like me, why, with your looks and your talk and that educated kind of way you've got, you might coin money."

"But you wouldn't care to work the Embankment and run the risk of the cat, as those Piccadilly chaps do?"

"No fear. But you could do better than that. When you're boozed you're not in it—you lose your head; but when you're right you make fellows wonder what you are. Sink me! A flat would pal on to you in half an hour if you coaxed him, as you can do it."

Jerry is an amusing philosopher, who could only have been developed in the rottenness of a decadence. Fancy an able-bodied, attractive fellow living with ease from day to day without doing a stroke of honest labour. He keeps clear of the police; he gratifies every want, yet he has the intellect of a flash potman and the manners of a valet. The tribe swarm in this city, and I reckon that they will teach us something when the overturn comes. They are strong and cunning predatory animals, who will direct weak and stupid predatory animals, and when the entire predatory tribe smash the flimsy bonds with which society holds them in check for the present, then stand by for ugly times.

I hate the revolver, but I am glad that I took to carrying one in time. Jerry and I grew so intimate, and I saw so much of his inner mind, that I judged it better to make no midnight excursions in his company without being ready for accidents. He is most humorous when he has wine in him, and his humour is a shade too grim for my taste.

We came home lately in a cab, after seeing a pretty little light-weight from Birmingham receive a severe dressing at the hands of a pocket Hercules from Bethnal Green. Jerry was in wild spirits, and his usual charming smile had broadened into a grin. Nothing would suit him but that I should go to his rooms.

"My aunt keeps house for me, and she's sure to be up, and my sister's there as well."

The notion of Jerry's dwelling calmly with his aunt and his sister was very touching, and my curiosity was roused. The aunt turned out to be a placid woman with a low voice; the sister was too florid and loud for my fancy. We played at whist, and in the intervals between the games we tested Jerry's wine. He has a singularly good selection. The florid nymph was reserved and coy at first, but as the wine mounted she rather astonished me by her choice of expletives. The merry one had become business-like, and that sweet smile was gone. As I looked at him I gradually understood that I had once more made a fool of myself, and I vowed that if I got out safely I would go to The Chequers no more. Over-confidence is a bad fault in a prize-fighter: it is worse than that in the case of a man who wishes to hold his own among London sharps. Blackey had the best of me, and now I was in for a much worse business, Jerry the Amiable drank ostentatiously, and he was evidently priming himself; the sister waxed effusive, and the aunt took care that the points were steadily increased. In the early morning the Amiable suggested that I should stay, but I would not have slept under the same roof with him for gold. He then ordered his relatives off to bed, and they slunk away rather like dogs than ladies. Jerry was a masterful man. When all was quiet I rose to take my hat, whereupon Jerry remarked, "You're not going that way, are you?"

"Must go home before it's too light."

"You'll have another drink?"

"No."

"But you will!"

The Amiable was really extremely exacting.

"Thanks. Good morning."

Jerry locked the door, and put his back to it. Then he softly said, "You've come home and taken my liquor; you flirt with my sister, and you're going away without leaving so much as a bit of gold. I'm not such a fool as Blackey. I know your aunt. I can send a newspaper to her address, and cook your goose. Suppose I make a row. I can do that, and we'll both be taken up for brawling outside a house of ill-fame. It won't matter to me; I'm used to it. But you'll be spoofed. Now, share up with an old pal, and I'll keep dark."

I had contrived to edge away from him, and I had time to produce the detestable firearm in a leisurely way.

"You're very kind, Jerry, my lad. I'll stay at this side of the room, and I shan't fire so long as you keep still. If you try to strike or put your hand in your pocket I shall pull on you; If you care to raise your arms over your head and move to the right-hand corner of the room I'll go quietly."

Jerry reckoned up all the chances and finally edged away from the door.

"Hands up, Jerry."

He obeyed, and I escaped into the street. Jerry is a coward at bottom, or he might have known that I dare not fire.

He met me the very next day, and he wore the usual free, gay smile. He held out his hand and flashed his teeth: "Forget that nonsense last night, old pal. When the booze is in—you know the rest. I was only having a lark. What'll you have? We shall be glad to see you round again."

But Mr. Landlord had dropped a word to me only half an hour before. Said Mr. Landlord, in answer to a little careless pumping, "Oh, Jerry? Well, it ain't no business of mine, but if it wasn't for the girls he'd have mighty few flash top-coats, nor beefsteaks neither for that matter."

Alas! Jerry, the smiling, delightful youth, is one of those odious pests who hang about in sporting company, and who are contemned and shunned by respectable racing men. Said a grave turfite to me last week, "Call those sportsmen! I'd—I'd—" but he could not invent a doom horrid enough for them, so he changed the subject with a mighty snort.

There is no knowing what gentlemen like Jerry will do. To call them scoundrels is to flatter them: they are brigands, and the knifing, lounging rascals of Sicily and Calabria are mere children in villany compared with their English imitators. Places like The Chequers are the hunting-grounds of creatures like Jerry, and the bait of drink draws the victims thither ready to be sacrificed. A month ago four of Jerry's gang most heartlessly robbed a publican who had sold his business. He had the purchase-money in his pocket, and the fellows drugged him. He ought to have known better, seeing how often he had watched the brigands operating on other people; but as he lost L700, and as his assailants are still at large with their shares of the spoil, we must not reproach him or add to his misery.

I picked out Jerry for portraiture because he is a fairly typical specimen of a bad—a very bad—set. When the history of our decline and fall comes to be Written by some Australian Gibbon, the historian may choose the British bully and turfite to set alongside of the awful creatures who preyed on the rich fools of wicked old Rome.



THE GENTLEMAN, THE DOCTOR, AND DICKY.

We have had enough of the roughs for a time, and I want now to deal with a few of the wrecks that I see—wrecks that started their voyage with every promise of prosperity. Let no young fellow who reads what follows fancy that he is safe. He may be laborious; an unguarded moment after a spell of severe work may see him take the first step to ruin. He may be brilliant: his brilliancy of intellect, by causing him to be courted, may lead him into idleness, and idleness is the bed whereon parasitic vices flourish rankly. Take warning.

I was invited to go for a drive, but I had letters to write, and said so. A quiet old man who was sitting in the darkest corner of the bar spoke to me softly, "If your letters are merely about ordinary business, you may dictate them to me here, and I will transcribe them and send them off." I replied that I could do them as quickly myself. The old man smiled. "You do not send letters in shorthand. I can take a hundred and forty words a minute, and you can do your correspondence and go away." The oddity of the proposal attracted me. I agreed to dictate. The old man took out his notebook, and in ten minutes the work was done. We came back in an hour, and by that time each letter was transcribed in a beautiful, delicate longhand. I handed the scribe a shilling, and he was satisfied. The Gentleman, as we called him, writes letters for anyone who can spare him a glass of liquor or a few coppers; but I had never tested his skill before. There was no one in the bar, so I sat down beside the old man, and we talked.

"You seem wonderfully clever at shorthand. I am surprised that you haven't permanent work."

"It would do me little good. I can go on for a long time, but when my fit comes on me I am not long in losing any job. They won't have me, friend—they won't have me."

"You've been well employed, then, in your time?"

"No one better. If I had command of myself, I might have done as well in my way as my brother has in his. I could beat him once, and I was quite as industrious as he was; but, when I came to the crossroads, I took the wrong turning, and here I am."

"May I ask how your brother succeeded? I mean—what is he?"

"He is Chief Justice ——."

I found that this was quite true; indeed, the Gentleman was one of the most veracious men I have known.

"Does your brother know how you are faring?"

"He did know, but I never trouble him. He was a good fellow to me, and I have never worried him for years. I prefer to be dead to the world. I have haunted this place, as you know, for six months; to-morrow I may make a change, and live in another sty."

"But surely you could get chance work that would keep you in decent clothes and food."

"I do get many chance jobs; but if the money amounts to much I am apt to be taken up as drunk and incapable."

The sweet, quiet smile which accompanied this amazing statement was touching. The old man had a fine, thoughtful face, and only a slight bulbousness of the nose gave sign of his failing. Properly dressed, he would have looked like a professor, or doctor, or something of that kind. As it was, his air of good breeding and culture quite accounted for the name the people gave him. I should have found it impossible to imagine him in a police-cell had I not been a midnight wanderer for long.

"How did you come to learn shorthand?"

"My father was a solicitor in large practice, and I found I could assist him with the confidential correspondence, so I took lessons in White's system for a year. My father said I was his right hand. Ah! He gave me ten pounds and two days' holiday at Brighton when I took down his first letter."

"Have you been a solicitor?"

"No. I had an idea of putting my name down at one of the Inns, but I went wrong before anything came of the affair."

"You say you have had good employment. But how did you contrive to separate from your father?"

"Oh! I wore out his patience. I was so successful that I thought it safe to toast my success. We were in a south-country town—Sussex, you know—and I began by hanging about the hotel in the market-place. Then I played cards at night with some of the fast hands, and was useless and shaky in the mornings. Then I began to have periodical fits of drunkenness; then I became quite untrustworthy, and last of all I robbed my father during a bad fit, and we parted."

"And then?"

"I picked up odd jobs for newspapers, or sponged on my brother. At last I was sent to the House as reporter, and did very well until one night when Palmerston was expected to make an important speech. My turn came, and I was blind and helpless. Since then I have been in place after place, but the end was always the same, and I have learned that I am a hopeless, worthless wretch."

"But couldn't your brother, for his own credit's sake, keep you in his house and put you under treatment?"

"My good friend, I should die under it. I revel in degradation. I luxuriate in self-contempt. My time is short, and I want to pass it away speedily. This life suits me, for I seldom have my senses, and there is only the early morning to dread. I think then—think, think, think. Until I can scrape together my first liquor I see ugly things. I should be in my own town with my grandchildren round me. I might have been on the Bench, like my brother, and all men would have respected me as they do him. Sons and daughters would have gathered round me when I came to my last hour. I gave it all up in order to sluice my throat with brandy and gin. That is the way I think in the morning. Then I take a glass, or beg one, as I shall from you presently, and then I forget. Once I went out to commit suicide, and took three whiskies to string my nerve up. In two minutes I was laughing at a Punch and Judy show. If you'll kindly order a quartern of gin in a pint glass for me, I'll fill it up and be quite content all the evening. No one ill-uses me. I'm a soft, harmless, disreputable old ne'er-do-well. That is all."

We drank, and then the Gentleman said, "You come here a good deal too much. Your hand was not quite right yesterday morning. Usually you keep right, and I really don't know how far you are touched. If I had your youth and your appearance, I think I should save myself in time by a bold step. Join the temperance people and work publicly; then you are committed, and you can't step back."

"But you don't think that I am likely to go to the dogs? I loaf around here because I have no ambition, and my life was settled for me; but I have command over myself."

"You had command over yourself, you mean. I think you are in great danger—very great indeed. My good friend, there are no exceptions. Meet me to-night, or say to-morrow, as I am to be drunk to-night; go to the beer-house at the end of my street, and I'll show you something."

Just then the Ramper came up and hailed the Gentleman. "Here you old swine! Are you sober enough to scratch off a letter?"

"I'm all right."

"Well, then, write to the usual, and tell him to put me on half-a-quid Sunshine, and half-a-quid Dartmoor a shop—s.p. both."

Thus our conversation was stopped, and the brother of a judge earned twopence by writing a letter for a racecourse thief.

Next night I went to a very shady public-house, and the Gentleman led me into a dirty room, where a little old man was sitting alone. The man was crooked, wizened, weak, and his bare toes stuck out of both shoes; his half-rotten frock coat gaped at the breast and showed that he had no shirt on; his hat must have been picked up from a dustheap, for it was filthy, and broken in three or four places.

"For mercy's sake, give me a mouthful of something!" said this object, turning the face of a mummy towards me. His dim eyes were rheumy, and his chin trembled. An awful sight!

In a flash I remembered him, and cried, "What, Doctor!"

He said, "I don't know you; my memory's gone. Send for twopenn'orth or a penn'orth of beer. Pray do."

My young friends, that man who begged for a pennyworth of muddy ale was first of all a brilliant soldier, then a brilliant lawyer, then a brilliant historian. His doctor's degree—he was Doctor of Laws—was gained by fair hard work. Think of that, and then look at my picture of the sodden, filthy scarecrow! Yes; that man began my education, and had I only gone straight on I should not be loafing about The Chequers. You ask how he could have anything to do with my education? Well, long ago I was a little bookworm, living in a lonely country house, and I had the run of some good shelves. I was only nine years old, but a huge history in two volumes attracted me most. I read and read that book until I could repeat whole pages easily, and even now I can go off at score if you give me a start.

The Scarecrow wrote that history!

Years afterwards I was fighting my way in London, and had charge of a journal which made a name in its day. Sometimes I had to deal with a message from a Minister of State, sometimes with a petition from a starving penny-a-liner. One day a little man was shown into my room, which room was instantly scented with whisky. He was well introduced, and I said, "Are you the Doctor —— who wrote the 'History of ——'?"

"I am, sir, and proud I shall be to write for you."

"What can you do?"

"Here's a specimen."

The MS. was a bundle of bills from a public-house, and the blank side was utilised. The Doctor never wasted money on paper when he could avoid it. The stuff was feeble, involved, useless. My face must have fallen, for the piteous Scarecrow said, "I have not your approval."

"We cannot use this."

Bending forward and clasping his hands, he said, "Could you not give me two shillings for it? There are two columns good. A shilling a column; surely that can't hurt you."

"I'll give you two shillings, and you can come back again if you are needy, but the MS. is of no use to us."

He took the money, and returned again and again for more. I found that he used to put fourpence in one pocket to meet the expense of his lodging-house bed, and he bought ten two-pennyworths of gin with the rest of the money. He always asked for two shillings, and always got it. I was not responsible for his mode of spending it.

And now the Doctor had turned up in the region of The Chequers. He was piteously, doggishly thankful for his drink, and he cried as he bleated out his prayers for my good health. Men cry readily when they come to be in the Doctor's condition. I asked him to take some soup. "I'm no great eater," he said; "but I'd like just one more with you—only one."

"Where do you lodge, Doctor?"

"To tell you the truth, I'm forced to put up with a berth in the old fowl-house at the bottom of the garden here. They let me stay there, but 'tis cold—cold."

"Do you work at all now?"

"Sometimes. But there is little doing—very little."

"How did you come to cease practising at the Bar, Doctor?"

"How do I come to be here? 'Tis the old thing—the old thing—and has been all along."

This poor wretch could not be allowed to go about half-naked, so I let the potman run out and get him a slop suit. (The Doctor sold the clothes next day for half-a-crown, and was speechless when I went to see him.) A hopeless, helpless wretch was the Doctor—the most hopeless I ever knew. He entered the army, early in life, and for a time he was petted and courted in Dublin society. The man was handsome, accomplished, and brilliantly clever, and success seemed to follow him. He sold out of the army and went to the Bar, where he succeeded during many years. No one could have lived a happier, fuller, or more fruitful life than he did before he slid into loose habits. His only pastime was the pursuit of literature, and he finished his big history of a certain great war while he was in full practice at the Chancery Bar. Power seemed to reside in him; fortune poured gifts on him; and he lost all. In an incredibly short space of time he drank away his practice, his reputation, his hopes of high honour, his last penny.

Thus it was that my historian came to beg of me for that muddy penn'orth.

I may as well finish the Doctor's story. If I were writing fiction the tale would be scouted as improbable, yet I am going to state plain facts. A firm of lawyers hunted up the Doctor, and informed him that he had succeeded to the sum of L30,000. There was no mistake about the matter; the long years of vile degradation, the rags, the squalor, the scorn, of men were all to disappear. The solicitors dressed the Doctor properly and advanced him money; he set off for Ireland to make some necessary arrangements, and he solemnly swore that he would become a total abstainer. At Swindon he chose to break his journey, took to drinking, and kept on for many hours. It was long since he had had such a chance of unlimited drink, and he greedily seized it. When he went to bed he took a bottle with him, and in the morning he was dead. Suffocated by alcohol, they said. He had no living soul related to him, and I believe his money went to the Crown.

I have written this last fragment on separate sheets, and my journal is interleaved for the first time.

The Gentleman and I became very friendly. I never tried to keep him from drinking: it was useless. When he was sober his company was pleasant, and I was very sorry when he mysteriously migrated, and many of our crew missed his help badly.

Some time after the Gentleman's flight, I was in a common lodging-house in Holborn, and in the kitchen I met a delightful vagabond of a Frenchman with whom I had a long talk. He happened to say, "One of our old friends died last week. He was a good man, and very well bred. Figure it to yourself, he was brother of one of your judges!" Then I knew that the Gentleman had gone. I wish I could have seen him again. As I look back at the old leaves of my journal I seem to see that sweet, patient smile which he wore as he told the story of his fall. There are some things almost too sad to bear thinking about. This is one.

* * * * *

Our friend Dicky had a bad misfortune lately. I should say that Dicky is an oldish man, who drifted into this ugly quarter some time ago, and took his place in the parlour, which is a room that I now prefer to the bar. I was holding a friendly discussion with a butcher when a strident voice said, "You are absolutely and irredeemably ignorant of the rudiments of your subject." I started. Where had I heard that voice before? The man was clad in an old shooting-jacket; his trousers were out at the knee, and his linen was very dirty; yet there was a something about him—a kind of distinction—which was impressive. After launching his expression of contempt at us, he buried his face in his pot and took a mighty drink. Slowly my memory aided me, and under that knobby, pustuled skin I traced the features of Dicky Nash, the most dreaded political journalist of my time. Often I had heard that voice roaring blasphemies with a vigour that no other man could equal; often had I seen that sturdy form extended beside the editorial chair, while the fumes in the office told tales as to the cause of the fall. And now here was Dicky—ragged, dirty, and evidently down on his luck. I soon made friends with him by owning his superior authority, and he kindly took a quart of ale at my expense. This was a man who used to earn L2,000 a year after he resigned his University fellowship. He was the friend and adviser of statesmen; he might have ended as a Cabinet Minister, for no man ever succeeded in gauging the extent of his miraculous ability; he seemed to be the most powerful, as well as the most dreaded man in England. Woe is me! We had to carry him up to bed; and he stayed on until he spent a three-guinea cheque, which Mr. Landlord cashed for him.

I knew no good would come of his Fleet-street games, though he used to laugh things off himself. He would come in about seven in the evening, and seat himself at his table. Then he would hiccup, "Can't write politics; no good. Give us a nice light subject."

"Try an article on the country at this season of the year."

"Good. I can't hold the damned pen. You sit down, I'll dictate: In this refulgent season, when the barred clouds bloom the soft dying day, it is pleasant to wander by the purple hedgerows where the stars of the (What damned flower is it that twinkles now? What do you say? Ragged Robin? Not poetic enough. Clematis? That'll do. Damn it, ride on!)—the stars of the clematis modestly twinkle, and the trailing—(What the h—— is it that trails? Honeysuckle? Good. Weigh in!)—trailing honeysuckle flings down that rich scent that falls like sweet music on the nerves.'"

And so on. He managed in this way to turn out the regulation column of flummery, but I knew it could not last. And now he had come to be a sot and an outcast. Worse has befallen him. He screwed up his nerve to write an article in the old style, and I helped him by acting as amanuensis. He violently attacked an editor who had persistently befriended him; then he wrote a London Letter for that editor's paper; then he sent the violent attack away in the envelope intended for the letter. There was a terrible quarrel.

So far did the Gentleman, the Doctor, and Dicky come down. I may say that Dicky, the companion of statesmen, the pride of his university, died of cold and hunger in a cellar in the Borough. Oh, young man, boast not of thy strength!



POACHERS AND NIGHTBIRDS.

The Chequers stands in a very nasty place, yet we are within easy distance of a park which swarms with game. This game is preserved for the amusement of a royal duke, who is kind enough to draw about twelve thousand a year from the admiring taxpayer. He has not rendered any very brilliant service to his adopted country, unless we reckon his nearly causing the loss of the battle of Alma as a national benefit. He wept piteously during the battle of Inkerman when the Guards got into a warm corner, but, although he is pleasingly merciful towards Russians, he is most courageous in his assaults on pheasants and rabbits, and the country provides him with the finest sporting ground in England. I should not like to say how many men make money by poaching in the park, but we have a regular school of them at The Chequers, and they seem to pick up a fair amount of drink money. The temptation is great. Every one of these poaching fellows has the hunter's instinct strongly developed, and neither fines nor gaol can frighten them. The keepers catch one after another, but the work goes on all the same. You cannot stop men from poaching, and there is an end of the matter. You may shout yourself hoarse in trying to bring a greyhound to heel after he sights a hare; but the dog cannot obey you, for he is an automaton. The human predatory animal has his share of reason, but he also is automatic to some degree, and he will hunt in spite of all perils and all punishments when he sights his prey. One comic old rascal whom I know well has been caught thirty times and imprisoned eight times. While he is in gaol he always occupies himself in composing songs in praise of poaching, and on the evening of his release he is invariably called on to furnish the company in the tap-room with his new composition. He cannot read or write, but he learns his songs by heart, and I have taken down a large number of them from his own lips. The things are much like Jemmy Catnach's stuff, so far as rhyme and rhythm are concerned, but they are interesting on account of the sly exultation that runs through them.

In one poem the lawless bard gives an account of a day's life in gaol, and his coarse phrases make you almost feel the cold and hunger. Here are some scraps from this descriptive work:—

"Till seven we walk around the yard, There is a man all to you guard. If you put your hand out so, Untoe the guv'nor you must go; Eight o'clock is our breakfast hour, Those wittles they do soon devour; Oh! dear me, how they eat and stuff, Lave off with less than half enough. Nine o'clock you mount the mill, That you mayn't cramp from settin' still. If that be ever so against your will, You must mount on the traaedin' mill. There is a turnkey that you'll find He is a raskill most unkind. To rob poor prisoners he is that man, To chaaete poor prisoners where he can. At eleven o'clock we march upstairs To hear the parson read the prayers. Then we are locked into a pen— It's almost like a lion's den. There's iron bars big round as your thigh, To make you of a prison shy. At twelve o'clock the turnkey come; The locks and bolts sound like a drum. If you be ever so full of game, The traaedin' mill it will you tame. At one you mount the mill again, That is labour all in vain If that be ever so wrong or right, You must traaede till six at night. Thursdays we have a jubal fraae Wi' bread and cheese for all the day. I'll tell you raaelly, without consate, For a hungry pig 'tis a charmin' bait. At six you're locked into your cell, There until the mornin' dwell; There's a bed o' straw all to lay on, There's Hobson's choice, there's that or none."

That is a bleak picture; but the old man winds up by bidding all his mates "go it again, my merry boys, and never mind if they you taaeke." He told me that on several occasions he was out ferreting, or with his lurcher, on the next night after coming out of prison. Can you keep such a fellow out of a well-stocked park? He likes the money that he gets for game, but what he likes far better is the wild pleasure of seeing the deadly dogs wind on the trail of the doomed quarry; he likes the danger, the strategy, the gambling chances.

One night I got this old man to drive me about for some hours. He is a smart hand with horses, and when I said, "Can you manage without lamps in this dark?"—he answered, "I could find my way for twenty miles round here if you tie my eyes up. There's nary gate that my nets hasn't been under; there's hardly a field that I haven't been chased on." As our trotter swung on, I found that the poacher associated almost every gate and outhouse and copse with some wild story. For example, we passed a clump of farm-buildings, and the poacher said; "I had a queer job in there. Three of us had had a good night—a dozen hares—and we got half-a-crown apiece for them, so we drank all day, and came out on the game again at night. We put down a master lot o' wires about eleven, and then we takes a bottle o' rum and goes to lie down on a load of hay. Well, we all takes too much, and sleeps on and on. When I wakes, Lord, we was covered with snow, and a marcy we was alive. We dursn't go for our wires in the daylight, and there we has to stand and see a keeper go and take out three hares, one after another. It was a fortnight before I had a chance of picking up the wires again, and we was about perished." Cold, wet, and all other inconveniences are nothing to the poacher.

Presently my man chuckled grimly. "Had a near shave over there where you see them ar' trees. I had my old dorg out one night, and two commarades along with me. We did werra well at that gate we just passed, so we tries another field. Do you think that there owd dorg 'ud go in? Not he. There never was such a one for 'cuteness. We was all in our poachin' clothes, faces blacked, women's nightcaps on, and shirts on over our coats. Well, the light come in the sky, and I separates from my mates, for I sees the owd dorg put up a hare and coorse her. I follows him, and he gits up for first turn; then puss begins to turn very quick to throw the dorg out before she made her last run to cover. He was on the scut, the old rip—catch him leave her—and I gits excited, and, like a fool, I chevies him on. In a minute I sees a man running at me, and off I goes for the gate. Now, I could run any man round here from 300 yards up to a mile; but I knew I must be took at the gate, unless I could stop the keeper. I had a big stick with me—about six foot long it was—and did sometimes to beat fuzz with; so I takes the stick by one end. He come up very sharp, and I made up my mind to let him gain on me. As soon as I feels him on me, I swings round, and the stick got him on the side of the head. He went flat down, and I got on to the road. I picked up my mates, and we washes our faces in a pond; then we leaves our clothes with one of the school, and walks off to the pub. Half an hour after, in comes the keeper and says, 'See what some of you blackguards has done for me?' I stands him a drink and says how sorry, and we parted. Ah! Years after that I was at a harvest supper with that keeper, and we talks of that affair. I says, 'I'll tell you now, I was the man as knocked you over,' and he says, 'Shake hands, Tom. It was the cleanest thing I ever saw done.'

"Do you really like the game, then?"

"Like it! I'd die at it. If it wasn't for my crippled foot I'd be out every night now."

Old Tom, the much-imprisoned man, never goes out with a gang now, but his influence is potent. He is the romantic poacher, and many a man has been set on by him. Observe that the best of these night thieves are on perfectly friendly terms with the keepers. If they are taken, they resign themselves to fate, and bear no ill-will. It is a game, and if the keeper makes a good move he is admired—and forgiven.

Six regular poachers come daily to The Chequers, but there are many others hanging around who are merely amateurs. One queer customer with whom I have stayed out many nights is the despair of the keepers. His resource is inexhaustible, and his courage is almost admirable. Let me say—with a blush if you like—that I am a skilful poacher, and my generalship has met with approval from gentlemen who have often seen the inside of Her Majesty's prisons. Alas!

One day I was much taken with the appearance of a beautiful fawn bitch, which lay on the seat in the room which is used by the most shady men in the district. Her owner was a tall, thin man, with sly grey eyes, set very near together, and a lean, resolute face. Doggy men are freemasons, and I soon opened the conversation by speaking of the pretty fawn. She pricked her ears, and to my amazement, they stood up like those of a rabbit. Such a weird, out-of-the-way head I never saw, though the dog looked a nice, well-trained greyhound when she had her ears laid back.

I said, "Why, she's a lurcher."

"She ain't all greyhound; but the best man as ever I knew always said there never was a prick-eared one a bad 'un."

"Is she for sale?"

"There ain't enough money to buy her."

"She's so very good?"

"Never was one like her!"

I found out, when we became fast friends, that the man's statement was quite correct. The dog's intelligence was supernatural. For the benefit of innocents who do not know what poaching is like, I will give an idea of this one dog's depredations. The owner—the Consumptive, I call him, as his night work has damaged his lungs—grew very friendly one day, and confidential. He winked and remarked, "Now, how many do you think I've had this month?"

"How many what?"

"You know. Rabbits. Guess."

I tried, and failed. The Consumptive whispered, "Well, I keeps count, just the same as a shopkeeper, and as true as I'm a living man I've taken two hundred and fifty out of that park, and averaged tenpence for 'em."

"With the one bitch?"

"No. I've got a pup from her—such a pup. The old 'un's taught the baby, and I swear I'll never let that pup come out in daylight. They work together, and nothing can get away."

This astounding statement was true to the letter. The dogs were like imps for cunning; they would hide skilfully at the very sound of a strange footstep, and they would retrieve for miles if necessary. I may say that I have seen them at work, and I earnestly wish that Frank Buckland could have been there.

The Consumptive is a dissolute, drunken fellow, whose life is certainly not noble. Fancy being maintained in idleness by a couple of dogs! But the park is there, and the man cannot help stealing. I have seen his puppy, and I wish the royal duke could see her. She is a cross between lurcher and greyhound; her cunning head resembles that of a terrier, and her long, slim limbs are hard as steel. Her precious owner spends his days in tippling; he never reads, and, I fancy, never thinks; he goes forth at dusk, and his faithful dogs proceed to work for his livelihood.

The Consumptive is, as I have said, a man of great resource; but he has for once been within a hair's breadth of disaster. When he walks across the park at dusk, he likes to take his wife with him, and on such occasions he looks like a quiet workman out for a stroll with the missus. He sometimes puts his arm round the lady's waist, and the couple look so very loving and tender. It would never do to take the raking, great deerhound; but the innocent little fawn dog naturally follows her master, and looks, oh! so demure.

The lady wears a wide loose cloak, which comes to her feet, for you must know that the mists rise very coldly from the hollows. Then these two sentimentalists wend their way to a secluded quarter of the vast park, and presently the faithful fawn mysteriously disappears. She moves slyly among the bracken, and her exquisite scent serves to guide her unerringly as she works up wind. Presently she steadies herself, takes aim, and rushes! The rabbit only has time to turn once or twice before the savage jaws close on him, and then the fawn makes her way carefully towards Darby and Joan. She takes advantage of every shadow; she never thinks of rashly crossing open ground, and Darby has only got to stamp twice to make her lie down. She sneaks up, and, horror! she gives the rabbit to Joan. Now under that cloak there is a useful little apparatus. A strong strap is fastened under Joan's armpits and over her breasts. This strap has on it a dozen strong hooks. Joan slits away the tendons of the rabbit's hind legs from the bone, hangs the game on one of the hooks, and the lovers wend their way peacefully, while the family provider glides off on another murderous errand. When four or five hooks are occupied, the lady walks homeward with the demure dog, Darby goes and drinks at The Chequers till about eleven, and then the mouse-coloured deerhound is taken out to do her share.

The fond couple were sitting on a bench under a tree, for Joan had fairly tired under the weight of no less than nine rabbits which were slung on her belt. The lurcher stole up, and quietly laid a rabbit down at Joan's feet; then a soft-spoken man came from behind the tree, and observed—

"I am a policeman in plain clothes, and you must go with me to the keeper's cottage."

But Darby, the wily one, rose to the occasion. The dog is trained to repudiate his acquaintance at a word, and when he said, "That's not my dog; get off, you brute!" the accomplished lurcher picked up the rabbit and vanished like lightning. Nevertheless the policeman led off Darby, and Joan followed. The keeper was out, but the policeman searched the Consumptive and found nothing.

The keeper said to me—even me, "My wife tells me they brought up a man the other night, but he had no game on him. He had a woman with him that fairly made the missus tremble. She was like a bloomin' giant out of a show." I smiled, for the Consumptive had told me the whole tale. "My 'art was in my mouth," he remarked, and I do not wonder. Considering that Joan was padded with the carcases of nine rabbits under that enormous cloak, it was quite natural for her bulk to seem abnormal. Ah! if that intelligent policeman had probed the mysteries that underlay the cloak! I am glad he did not, for the Consumptive is a most entertaining beast of prey.

Another of our poaching men was obliged to borrow from me the money for his dog licences, and in gratitude he allowed me to see his brace of greyhounds work at midnight. People think that greyhounds cannot hunt by scent, but this man has a tiny black and a large brindle that work like basset-hounds. They are partners, and they have apparently a great contempt for the rules of coursing. One waits at the bottom of a field, while his partner quarters the ground with the arrowy fleetness of a swallow. When a hare is put up by the beating dog she goes straight to her doom.

It seems marvellous that such lawless desperadoes should be hanging about London; but there they are, and they will have successors so long as there is a head of game on the ground. The men are disreputable loafers; they care only for drink and the pleasures of idleness. I grant that. My only business is to show what a strange secret life, what a strange secret society, may be studied almost within sight of St. Paul's.

The very best and most daring poacher I know lives within five-and-twenty minutes' journey from Waterloo. You may keep on framing stringent game laws as long as you choose, but you cannot kill an overmastering instinct.

I am not prepared to say, "Abolish the Game Laws;" but I do say that those laws cause wild, worthless fellows to be regarded as heroes. No stigma whatever attaches to a man who has been imprisoned for poaching; he has won his Victoria Cross, and he is admired henceforth. You inflict a punishment which confers honour on the culprit in the eyes of the only persons for whose opinion he cares. Even the better sort of men who haunt our public-houses are glad to meet and talk with the poachers. The punishment gives a man a few weeks of privation and months of adulation. He bears no malice; he simply goes and poaches again. No burglar ever brags of his exploits; the poacher always boasts, and always receives applause.



JIM BILLINGS.

Few people know that large numbers of the splendid seamen who man our North Sea fishing fleets are arrant Cockneys. In the North-country and in Scotland the proud natives are accustomed to regard the Cockney as a being who can only be reckoned as human by very charitable persons. To hear a Scotch fisherman mention a "Kokenee" is an experience which lets you know how far scorn may really be cherished by an earnest man. The Northerners believe that all the manliness and hardiness in the country reside in their persons; but I take leave to dispute that pleasing article of faith, for I have seen hundreds of Londoners who were quite as brave and skilful sailors as any born north of the Tees. The Cockney is a little given to talking, but he is a good man all the same.

In the smacks many lads from the workhouse schools are apprenticed, and some of the smartest skippers in England come originally from Mitcham or Sutton. Jim Billings was a workhouse boy when he first went to sea, and he sometimes ran up to London after his eight weeks' trips were over. When I first cast eyes on Jim I said quite involuntarily, "Bob Travers, by the living man!" The famous coloured boxer is still alive and hearty, and it would be hard to tell the difference between him and Jim Billings were it not that the prize-fighter dresses smartly. Jim doesn't; his huge chest is set off by a coarse white jumper; his corded arms are usually bared nearly to the elbow, and his vast shock of twining curls relieves him generally from the trouble of wearing headgear. On Sundays he sometimes puts on a most comfortless felt hat, but that is merely a chance tribute to social usage, and the ugly excrescence does not disfigure Jim's shaggy head for very long. Billings's father was a mulatto prize-fighter, who perished early from the effects of those raging excesses in which all men of his class indulged when they came out of training. The mulatto was as powerful and game a man as ever stripped in a twenty-four-foot ring; but he ruined his constitution with alcohol, and he left his children penniless. The little bullet-headed Jim was drafted off to the workhouse school, and from thence to a small fishing-smack.

Does anyone ever think nowadays of the horrors that were to be seen among the fleets not so very long ago? It is not a wonder that any of the fishers had a glimmer of human feeling in them when they reached manhood, for no brute beast—not even a cabhorse in an Italian town—was ever treated as an apprentice on a smack was treated. Some of the sea-ruffians carried their cruelty to insane extremes, for the lust of blood seemed to grow upon them. It is a naked truth that there was no law for boys who lived on the high seas until very recent years. One fine, hardy seadog (that is the correct and robust way of talking) used to strip his apprentice, and make him go out to the bowsprit end when the vessel was dipping her stem in winter time. He was such a merry fellow, was this bold seadog, and I could make breezy, "robust" Britons laugh for hours by my narratives of his drolleries. He would not let this poor boy eat a morsel of anything until he had mixed the dish with excrements, and when the lad puked at the food the hardy mariner cut his head open with a belaying-pin or flung him down the hatchway. Sometimes the hardy one and the mate lashed the apprentice up in the fore-rigging, and they had rare sport while he squealed under the sting of the knotted rope's end. On one night the watch on deck saw a figure dart forward and spring on the rail; the contumacious boy had stripped himself, and he was barely saved from throwing his skinny, lacerated carcass into the sea. Shortly after this the youngest apprentice went below, and found the ill-used lad standing on a locker, and gibbering fearfully. The tiny boy said:

"Oh! Jim, Jim, what's come to you?" but James never uttered a rational word more. He was sent to his mother's house at Deptford, and he went to bed with four other children. In the early morning the youngsters noticed that Jim seemed rather stiff, and he had exceedingly good reasons, for he was stone-dead, and doubled up. The coroner's jury thought that death resulted from a stoppage of the intestines. That was very funny indeed, for Jim's shipmates observed that as he was bruised and rope's-ended more and more he lost all power of retaining his food, and everything he swallowed passed from him undigested. Jim succumbed to the wholesome, manly, hardening, maritime discipline of the good old times, and no one was hanged for murdering him.

The mind of the kindly, shoregoing man cannot rightly conceive the monstrosities of cruelty which were perpetrated. Fancy a boy bending over a line and baiting hooks for dear life while the blood from a fearful scalp wound drained his veins till he fainted. The lad came to in four hours; had he died he would have been quietly reported as washed overboard. If you can stand a few hours of talk from an old smacksman you may hear a sombre litany of horror. Those fishers are, physically, the flower of our race, and many of them have the noblest moral qualities. Knowing what I do of the old days, I wonder that the men are any better than desperate savages.

Jim Billings endured the bitterest hardships that could befall an apprentice. For six years he was not allowed to have a bed, for that luxury was generally denied to boys. He secured a piece of old netting, and he used to sleep on that until it became rotten by reason of the salt water which drained from his clothes. On mad winter nights, when the sea came hurling along, and crashed thunderously on the decks, the smack tugged and lunged at her trawl. All round her the dark water boiled and roared, and the blast shrieked through the cordage with hollow tremors. That One who rideth on the wings of the wind lashed the dark sea into aimless fury, and the men on deck clung where they could as the smothering waves broke and seethed in wild eddies over the reeling vessel. At midnight the sleepers below heard the cry, "Haul, O! haul, haul, haul!" and they staggered to their feet in the reeking den of a cabin.

"Does it rain?"

"No, it snows."

That was the fragment of dialogue which passed pretty often. Then the skipper inquired, "Do you want any cinder ashes?" The ashes were spread on the treacherous deck; the bars were fixed in the capstan, and the crew tramped on their chill round. Men often fell asleep at their dreary work, and walked on mechanically; sometimes the struggle lasted for an hour or two, until strong fellows were ready to lie down, and over the straining gang the icy wind roared and the piercing drift flew in vicious streams. When the big beam and the slimy net came to hand the worst of the work began; it often happened that a man who ran against a shipmate was obliged to say, "Who's that?" so dense was the darkness; and yet amid that impenetrable gloom the intricate gear had to be handled with certainty, and when the living avalanche of fish flowed from the great bag, it was necessary to kill, clean, and sort them in the dark. When the toil was over Jim Billings went below with his mates, and their dripping clothes soon covered the cabin floor with slush.

"Surely they changed their clothes?" I fancy I hear some innocent asking that question. Ah! No. The smacksmen have no time for changes of raiment. Jim huddled himself up like the rest: the crew turned in soaking, and woke up steaming, just as the men do even nowadays.

Week in, week out, Jim Billings led that hard life, and he grew up brawny and sound in spite of all his troubles. His frame was a mass of bone and wire, and no man could accurately measure his strength. His mind was left vacant of all good impressions; every purely animal faculty was abnormally developed, and Jim's one notion of relaxation was to get beastly drunk whenever he had the chance. Like too many more of those grand seamen, he came to regard himself as an outcast, for he was cut off from the world during about forty-six weeks of every year, and he thought that no creature on earth cared for him. If he broke a finger or strained a tendon, he must bear his suffering, and labour on until his eight weeks were up; books, newspapers, rational amusements were unknown to him; he lived on amid cursing, fighting, fierce toil, and general bestiality.

Pray, what were Jim's recreations? When he ran up to London he remained violently, aggressively drunk while his money lasted, and at such times he was as dangerous as a Cape buffalo in a rage. With all his weight he was as active as a leopard, and his hitting was as quick as Ned Donnelly's. He enjoyed a fight, but no one who faced him shared his enjoyment long; for he generally settled his man with one rush. He used both hands with awful severity; and in short, he was one of the most fearsome wild beasts ever allowed to remain at large. I have known him to take four men at once, with disastrous results to the four, and, when he had to be conveyed to the police-station (which was rather frequently), fresh men were always brought round to handle him. Speaking personally, I may say that I would rather enter a cage of performing lions than stand up for two rounds with Mr. Billings. He only once was near The Chequers, and I fear I entertained an unholy desire to see some of our peculiar and eloquent pugilists raise his ire. Here was a pretty mass of blackguard manhood for you! Everyone who knew him felt certain that Jim would be sent to penal servitude in the end for killing some antagonist with an unlucky blow; no human power seemed capable of restraining him, and of superhuman powers he only knew one thing—he knew that you use certain words for cursing purposes.

Over the grey desolation of that cruel North Sea no humanising agency ever travelled to soften Jim Billings and his like; but there were many agencies at work to convert the men into brutes.

On calm days there came sinister vessels that sneaked furtively among the fleet. A little black flag flew from the foretopmast stay of these ugly visitors, and that was a sign that tobacco and spirits were on sale aboard. The smacksmen went for tobacco, which is a necessity of life to them; but the clever Dutchmen soon contrived to introduce other wares. Vile aniseed brandy—liquid fire—was sold cheap, and many a man who began the day cool and sober ended it as a raving madman. Mr. Coper, the Dutch trader, did not care a rush for ready money; ropes, nets, sails were quite as much in his line, and a continual temptation was held out to men who wanted to rob their owners. Jim Billings used to get drunk as often as possible, and he himself told me of one ghastly expedient to which he was reduced when he and his shipmates were parched and craving for more poison. A dead man came past their vessel; they lowered the boat, and proceeded to haul the clothes off the corpse. The putrid flesh came away with the garments, but the drunkards never heeded. They scrubbed the clothes, dried them in the rigging, and coped them away for brandy.

Mr. Coper had other attractions for young and lusty fishermen. There are certain hounds in France, Holland, and even in our own virtuous country, who pick up a living by selling beastly pictures. In the North Sea fleets there are 12,000 powerful fellows who are practically condemned to celibacy, and the human apes who sold the bawdy pictures drove a rare trade among the swarming vessels.

Jim Billings was a capital customer to the Copers, for his animalism ran riot, and he was more like a tremendous automaton than like a man.

So this mighty creature lived his life, drinking, fighting, toiling, blaspheming, and dwelling in rank darkness. He often spoke of "Gord," and his burly childishness tickled me infinitely. I liked Jim; he was such a Man when one compared him with our sharps and noodles; but I never expected to see him fairly distance me in the race towards respectability. I am still a Loafer; Jim is a most estimable member of the gentlest society; and this is how it all came about.

On one grey Sunday morning a pretty smack came creeping through the fleet. Far and near the dark trawlers heaved to the soft swell, and they looked picturesque enough; but the strange vessel was handsomer than any of the fishing-boats, and Jim's curiosity was roused. The new smack was flying a flag at her masthead, but Jim could not read well enough to make out the inscription on the flag. He said, "Who's he?" and his mate answered, "A blank mission ship. Lot o' blokes come round preachin' and prayin'."

"What? To our blank chaps? How is it I've never seen his blank flag afore?"

"Ain't been werry long started. I heerd about 'em at Gorleston. Fat Dan got converted board o' one on 'em."

Just then the smart smack shoved her foresail a-weather and hove-to; then a small boat put out, and a stout grizzled man hailed Jim.

"What cheer, old lad, what cheer? Come and give us a look. Service in an hour's time. Come and have a pot o' tea and a pipe."

I am grieved to say that Mr. Billings remarked, "Let's go aboard the blank, and capsize the whole blank trunk."

Certainly he jumped up the side of the mission ship with very evil intentions. Boat after boat came up and made fast astern of the dandy vessel, and soon the decks were crowded with merry groups. Jim couldn't make it out for the life of him. These fellows had their pipes and cigars going; they were full of fun, and yet Jim could not hear an oath or a lewd word. Gradually he began to feel a little sheepish, but nevertheless he did not relinquish his desire to break up the service. The skipper of the smack invited Jim to go below, and handed him a steaming mug of tea.

"Where's your 'bacca?" said the skipper.

"Left him aboard."

"Never mind. Take half a pound and pay for it to-morrow. We sell the best at a shilling a pound."

Jim gaped. Here was a decidedly practical religious agency. A shilling a pound! Cheaper than the Copers' rubbish. Jim took a few pulls at the strong, black tobacco, and began to reconsider his notion about smashing up the service. He found the religious skipper was as good a fisherman as anyone in the fleet; the talk was free from that horrible cant which scares wild and manly men so easily, and the copper-coloured rowdy almost enjoyed himself.

Presently the lively company filed into the hold, squatted on fish boxes, and proceeded to make themselves comfortable. Two speakers from London were to address the meeting, and Jim gazed very critically on both.

A hymn was sung, and the crash of the hoarse voices sounded weirdly over the moan of the wind. Jim felt something catch at his throat, and yet he was unable to tell what strange new feeling thrilled him. His comrades sang as if their lives depended on their efforts. Jim sat on, half pleased, half sulky, wholly puzzled. Then one of the speakers rose. At first sight the preacher looked like anything but an apostle; his plump, rounded body gave no hint of asceticism, and his merry, pure eye twinkled from the midst of a most rubicund expanse of countenance. He looked like one who had found the world a pleasant place, and Jim gruffly described him as a "jolly old bloke." But the voice of this comfortable, suave-looking missionary by no means matched his appearance. He spoke with a grave and silvery pitch that made his words seem to soar lightly over his audience. His accent was that of the genuine society man, but a delicate touch—a mere suspicion—of Scotch gave the cultured tones a certain odd piquancy. A solemn note of deep passion trembled, as it were, amid the floating music, and every word went home. This jolly, rosy missionary is one of the best of living popular speakers, and his passionate simplicity fairly conquers the very rudest of audiences. The man believes every word he says, and his power of rousing strong emotion has seldom been equalled.

Jim Billings sat and glowered; he understood every simply lucid sentence that the orator uttered, and he was charmed in spite of himself.

"This is the blankest, rummiest blank go ever I was in," muttered the would-be iconoclast.

His visions of a merry riot were all fled, and he was listening with the eagerness of a decorous Sunday-school child.

Speaker Number Two arose, and Jim's bleared eyes were riveted on him. The rough saw before him a pallid, worn man, whose beautiful face seemed drawn by suffering. Long, exquisite artist hands, silky beard, kindly, humorous mouth, marked by stern lines; these were the things that Jim dimly saw. But the dusky blackguard was really daunted and mastered by the preacher's eye. The wonderful eye was like Napoleon's and Mary Stuart's in colour; but the Emperor's lordly look hinted of earthly ambition: the missionary's wide, flashing gaze seemed to be turned on some solemn vision. Twice in my life have I seen such an eye—once in the flesh when I met General Gordon, once in a portrait of Columbus. Poor Jim was fascinated; he was in presence of the hero-martyr who has revolutionised the life of a great population by the sheer force of his own unconquerable will. Jim did not know that the slim man with the royal eye must endure acute agony as he travels from one squalid vessel to another; he did not know that the sublime modern Reformer has overcome colossal difficulties while enduring tortures which would make even brave men pray for death. Jim was in the dark. He only knew that the saintly man talked like a "toff," and said strange things. After a little the "toff" dropped the accent of the Belgravian and began to speak in low, impassioned tones; he told one little story, and Jim found that he must cry or swear. With sorrow I must say that he did the latter, in order to bully the lump out of his bull throat. Then the "toff" broke into a cry of infinite tenderness and pity; he implored the men to come, and some sturdy fellows sobbed; but Jim did not understand where they were wanted to go, and he growled another oath.

After this some of the fishermen spoke, and Jim heard how drunkards, fighting men, and spendthrifts had become peaceable and prosperous citizens.

Puzzles were heaped on the poor man's brain. He could have broken that pale man in halves with one hand; yet the pale man mastered him. He knew some of the burly seamen as old ruffians; yet here they were—talking gently, and boasting about their happiness and prosperity. When the last crashing chorus had been sung, the two swells went round and chatted freely with all comers.

"No —— 'toffs' never treated me like that afore."

All that day, until the trawl went down, Jim sat growling and brooding. He was inarticulate, and the crowding thoughts that surged in his dim soul were chaotic.

Next day he inquired, "Do you know anything 'bout this yere Jesus as they yarns about?"

"Devil a bit! Get the bloke on the Mission ship to tell you."

"See him and you damned fust!"

Thus spoke the impolite James. But on the ninth day the Mission smack ran into the Blue fleet again, and Jim took a desperate resolution. His boat was astern, so he jumped over the counter and sculled himself straight to the Mission smack.

"Got them gents aboard?"

The skipper was wild with delight at seeing the most notorious ruffian on the coast come voluntarily, and Mr. Billings was soon below in the after cabin. Poor Jim stuttered and haggled while trying to explain what was the matter with him.

"I tell you, guvnor, I've got a something that must come out, or I shall choke straight off. I want to speak, and I can't get no words."

I shall say nothing of the long talk that went on. I know something about it, but the subject is too sacred for a Loafer to touch. I shall only say that Jim Billings got release, as the fishers say, and his wild, infantine outburst made powerful men cry like children.

He is now a very quiet soul, and he neither visits The Chequers nor any other hostelry. There was great fun among the Gorleston men when Jim turned serious, and one merry smacksman actually struck at the quadroon. Jim bit his lip, and said,

"Bill, old lad, I'd have killed you for that a year ago. Shake hands; God bless you!"

Which was rather a plucky thing to do.

Some blathering parsons say that this blessed Mission is teaching men to talk cant and Puritanism. Speaking as a very cynical Loafer, I can only say that if Puritanism turns fishing fleets and fishing towns from being hells on earth into being decent places; if Puritanism heals the sick, comforts the sufferers, carries joy and refinement and culture into places that were once homes of horror, and renders the police force almost a superfluity in two great towns—then I think we can put up with Puritanism.

I know that Jim Billings was a dangerous untamed animal; he is now a jolly, but quiet fellow. I was always rather afraid of him; but now I should not mind sailing in his vessel. The Puritan Mission has civilised him and hundreds on hundreds more, and I wish the parsons had done just half as much.

For my own part, I think that when I am clear of The Chequers I shall go clean away into the North Sea. If on some mad night the last sea heaves us down, and the Loafer is found on some wind-swept beach, that will be as good an end as a burnt-out, careless being can ask. Perhaps Jim Billings, the rough, and I, the broken gentleman, may go triumphantly together. Who knows? I should like to take the last flight with the fighting nigger.



OUR PARLOUR COMPANY.

We have one room where high prices are charged. This place is kept very select indeed, and the vulgar are excluded. I was not received very well at first, and some of the assembly talked at me in a way which was intended to be highly droll; but I never lost temper, and I fairly established my position by dint of good humour. Moreover, I found out who was the most unpopular man in the room, and earned much goodwill by slyly administering the kind of strokes which a fairly educated man can always play off on a dullard. I hate the parlour, and if I were to let out according to my fancy I should use violent language. In that dull, stupid place one learns to appraise the talk about sociality and joviality at its correct value. I am afraid I must utter a heresy. I have heard that George Eliot's chapter about the Raveloe Inn is considered as equal to Shakespeare's work. Now I can only see in it the imaginative writing of a clever woman who tried to dramatise a scene without having any data to guide her. In all my life I never heard a conversation resembling that of the farrier and the rest in the remotest degree. In the first place, one element of public-house talk—the overt or sly indecency—is left out. In an actual public-house parlour the man who can bring in a totally new tale of a dirty nature is the hero of the evening. Then the element of scandal is missing. When men of vulgar mind meet together, you only need to wait a few minutes before you hear someone's character pulled to pieces, and the scandal is usually of the clumsiest sort. Again, it is easy to represent the landlord as a pliable person who agrees with everybody; but the landlord of real life is a person who is treated with deference, and who asserts his position in the most pronounced fashion. If he has a good customer he is courteous and obliging, but he keeps a strict hand on his company, and lets them know who is master. Nearly all the landlords I have known since I became a Loafer have been good fellows. They find it in their interest to be generous, obliging, and friendly; but to represent them as timorous sycophants is absurd. They are ordinary tradesmen; they have a good opinion of themselves, and they hold their own with all classes of men. The women are sometimes insolent, overdressed creatures, who heartily despise their customers; but very often a landlord marries a lady who is as far as possible from being like the hostess of fiction.