"Stop!' cried the man. 'Let's have a look at you!'

"This caused her to turn back again, in the act of going out, and to present herself and her charge before him.

"I thought so!' said he. 'I know you.' "We have often seen each other,' said Little Dorrit, recognising the sexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, 'when I have been at church here.'

"More than that, we've got your birth in our Register, you know; you're one of our curiosities.'

"Indeed?' said Little Dorrit.

"To be sure. As the child of the-bythe-bye, how did you get out so early?'

"We were shut out last night, and are waiting to get in.'

"You don't mean it? And there's another hour good yet! Come into the vestry. You'll find a fire in the vestry, on account of the painters. I'm waiting for the painters, or I shouldn't be here, you may depend upon it. One of our curiosities mustn't be cold, when we have it in our power to warm her up comfortable. Come along. .. Stay a bit. I'll get some cushions out of the church, and you and your friend shall lie down before the fire.

Don't be afraid of not going in to join your father when the gate opens. I'll call you.' "He soon brought in the cushions, and strewed them on the ground.

"There you are, you see. as life. Oh, never mind

Again as large mind thanking. I've

daughters of my own. And though they weren't born in the Marshalsea Prison, they might have been, if I had been, in my ways of carrying on, of your father's breed. Stop a bit. I must put something under the cushion for your head. Here's a burial volume. Just the thing! We have got Mrs. Bangham in this book. But what makes these books interesting to most people is not who's in 'em, but who isn't who's coming, you know, and when. That's the interesting question.'

“Commendingly looking back at the pillow he had improvised, he left them to their hour's repose. Maggy was snoring already, and Little Dorrit was soon fast asleep."

When I had closed the book the compound gentleman ambled back, and before I could renew my inquiries began to voice certain difficulties insurmountable obstacles and impregnable barriers between me and my permit. The address, once so freely offered, of the

fruiterer, under whose sheltering roof the Warden was to be found when off duty, and whose permission was so absolutely necessary to me, was not, now that he came to think it over, likely to be of any service. The Warden was a vagarious individual - had numbers of places where he might or might not be found in fact, there was not any particular place in which he could with any certainty be found. The best way much the best way would be for me to give the beadle or the sexton or the verger my card, upon which would be written the date and hour of my proposed occupancy of the room in which Little Dorrit and Maggy were said to have slept (the reader will kindly note the distinction between his belief in the incident and that of the little old woman); he would then present the card himself, waiting up all night if necessary until the warden returned home, wherever that home happened to be, whether over the fruiterer's or elsewhere; and on the morrow I could return - better make it in the afternoon-say four o'clock, when he would hand me the answer.

And I did.

And this was it:

"Yes, the Warden has no objection. But he insists on one thing, and that is that you

reward me handsomely before you begin work."

And the painter did and was glad toconsidering how hard the industrious nightowl had worked - dropping the coins in the outstretched palms of the sexton, the verger, or the beadle he cannot remember which, nor does he much care.

CHAPTER XII

THE THAMES, WHERE GAFFER, ROWED BY LIZZIE HEXAM, PLIED HIS TRADE

T

understand why the damp, mouldy, waterside life of the Thames should have so strongly appealed to Mr. Dickens, it is only necessary to follow in his footsteps, especially when the tide is out - and a mighty tide it is.

You think when you are crossing London Bridge to the Surrey side, your eye fixed on what you suppose is its wharf front and we are dealing with that part of the Thames lying between Southwark Bridge and London Bridge

that all you have to do to reach the river bank is to walk along some street running at right angles to the Bridge, turn to the right, and so on down to the water's edge, where, from some pile of freight on an overloaded dock, you can study the river spread out before you.

Nothing of this is possible. The row of sullen warehouses, frowning from dull eyes under iron lids on the water traffic that sweeps past their doors, have neither wharfs nor docks.