The night-watchman, who had left his seat on the jetty to answer thegate-bell, came back with disgust written on a countenance only too welldesigned to express it.

"If she's been up 'ere once in the last week to, know whether theSilvia is up she's been four or five times," he growled. "He's forty-seven if he's a day; 'is left leg is shorter than 'is right, and he talkswith a stutter. When she's with 'im you'd think as butter wouldn't meltin 'er mouth; but the way she talked to me just now you'd think I waspaid a-purpose to wait on her. I asked 'er at last wot she thought I washere for, and she said she didn't know, and nobody else neither. Andafore she went off she told the potman from the 'Albion,' wot waslistening, that I was known all over Wapping as the Sleeping Beauty.

"She ain't the fust I've 'ad words with, not by a lot. They're all thesame; they all start in a nice, kind, soapy sort o' way, and, as soon asthey don't get wot they want, fly into a temper and ask me who, I think Iam. I told one woman once not to be silly, and I shall never forget itas long as I live-never. For all I know, she's wearing a bit o' my 'airin a locket to this day, and very likely boasting that I gave it to her.

"Talking of her reminds me of another woman. There was a Cap'n Pinner,used to trade between 'ere and Hull on a schooner named the Snipe. Nicelittle craft she was, and 'e was a very nice feller. Many and many's thepint we've 'ad together, turn and turn-about, and the on'y time we ever'ad a cross word was when somebody hid his clay pipe in my beer and 'ewas foolish enough to think I'd done it.

"He 'ad a nice little cottage, 'e told me about, near Hull, and 'iswife's father, a man of pretty near seventy, lived with 'em. Well-offthe old man was, and, as she was his only daughter, they looked to 'aveall his money when he'd gorn. Their only fear was that 'e might marryagin, and, judging from wot 'e used to tell me about the old man, Ithought it more than likely.

"'If it wasn't for my missis he'd ha' been married over and over agin,'he ses one day. 'He's like a child playing with gunpowder.'

"''Ow would it be to let 'im burn hisself a bit?' I ses.

"'If you was to see some o' the gunpowder he

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