considerably advanced, the wind had dropped, and it was already dark when the Tom Bowling let go her anchor off Gravesend. The cabin lamp was lighted, and old Joe and Plum sat down to a hearty meal, after which they smoked their pipes and dipped a ladle into a silver bowl of rum punch of Westlake's own brewing.

"D' ye mean, captain," said Plum, "that the little chap in the hold shall have any supper?"

"Well, Peter," answered old Joe, "I've bin a-turning of it over in my mind, and spite of his 'rageous conduct I dunno, after all, that it would be right to let him lie all night without a bite of something. Call Bob."

This man, whose surname was Robins, arrived. Joe told him to get a lantern and cut a plate of beef and bread and mix a small mug of rum and water.

"Ye can tell the little chap, Bob," said old Joe, speaking with one eye shut, "that we're only a-feeding of him up so as to get more satisfaction out of his hexecution to-morrow morning. You can say that sailoring is a rather monotonous life, and that if he'll die game we shall all feel obliged for the hentertainment he'll afford us."

Whether Bob Robins communicated this speech to Sloper I cannot say. It is certain, however, that he took the lantern and the tailor's supper into the hold and stood over the little man whilst he ate and drank. When the retired tailor had finished his repast he asked Robins if he was to be kept locked up in that black hole all night without anything to lie on but shingle.

"What did you fire at us for?" said Bob.

"I never fired at you. I was firing for my own diversion," answered
Mr. Sloper.

"D' ye load with stones for your divarsion, as ye call it?" said Bob.

"There was no stones when you came along," cried the tailor. "Why did you aggrevate me by firing in return?"

"What did you want to fire at all for?" said Bob, almost pitying the trembling little creature as he showed by the lantern light in the cutter's small black hold.

"I was celebrating a hanniversary," answered Mr. Sloper, who maltreated his h's as badly as old Westlake.

"And what sort of a hanniversary calls for gun firing?" said Bob, holding up the lantern to the tailor's face.

"It was the hanniversary of my wife's death," said Mr. Sloper, "and a day of rejoicing with me and my friends."

Bob, who himself was a married man, loving his wife and two little girls with the warm affection of the genuine sailor's heart, looked for some moments speechless with disgust at the white shadowy countenance of Mr. Sloper, and without deigning another word, rose through the hatch, which he carefully secured, and then went aft to old Joe and Plum to report what had passed.

"Smite me," cried the old man-of-warsman, after listening to Bob; "but if this was furrin parts instead of Lunnon river, poisoned if I wouldn't yard-arm the little faggot in rale earnest. What! make a joyful hanniversary of his wife's death, and fire off guns that the whole blooming country may know what a little beast it is. Sit ye down, Bob, there's a glass—help yourself. This is what we mean to do," and he forthwith related his scheme for the morning to Robins and Plum.

They smoked hard and roared out in great peals of laughter. The bulkheads of a little ship such as the Tom Bowling are not, as may be supposed, of very formidable scantling; there is no doubt that Sloper in the hold heard these wild shouts of laughter which the muffling of the bulkhead and his own terrors would render awful to him, and we may be sure that as he lay in the blackness harkening to those horrid notes of merriment, he feared and perspired exceedingly.

Somewhere at about eight o'clock next morning the Tom Bowling was got under way, and when all hands had breakfasted, Joe Westlake took the tiller, and Plum, Robins, and Tuck went to work to construct the machinery for the retired tailor's execution. They filled a big tub with water and covered it loosely with a tarpaulin. Close against this tub they placed a three-legged stool; alongside this stool upon the deck was a tar-bucket with a tar-brush sticking up in it; they also procured and placed beside this tar-bucket a piece of rough iron hoop. At the time that these preparations were completed the cutter was running through the Warp, which is some little distance past the Nore Light. The river had widened into the aspect of an ocean, and over the bows of the craft the water stretched boundless and blue as the horizon of the Pacific.

They opened the hatch and brought the tailor on deck. Needless to say, he had not slept a wink all night. Who, accustomed to a feather-bed, could snatch even ten minutes' sleep when his couch is Thames ballast? Sloper's eyes were bloodshot, and his countenance haggard. He looked inconceivably grimy and forlorn, and Bob Robins felt sorry for the little creature till he recollected on a sudden the man's reason for letting off his cannons. Tuck took the helm, and old Joe with a solemn countenance and slow gait rolled forward to where the apparatus was stationed.

"Now, you see your fate," he exclaimed, lifting up his eyes as though he beheld a rope with a noose dangling from the masthead, "and since no good can come of cautioning a corpse, why then, sorry I am that there are n't a company of people arter your kind assembled aboard this craft to witness the hexecution of my sentence upon ye. Last night I heard that the reason of your firing off your guns were to celebrate the hanniversary of your wife's death. I dunno, I'm sure, whether such a practice wouldn't be considered as more criminal and worthy of a fearfuller punishment than even the shooting at a man's flag and degrading the honour of it. But to say more 'ud only be a-wasting of breath. My lads, do your duty."

Robins, with powerful arms, grasped the tailor, who shrieked murder and struggled hard. His struggles were as the throes and convulsions of a mouse in the teeth of a cat. He was dumped down on the three-legged stool. In an instant Plum lathered his jaws with the tar-brush, and picking up the piece of broken iron hoop scraped little Sloper's cheeks till the lather was as much blood as tar. Then, lifting his leg, he tilted the stool and Mr. Sloper fell backwards on to the tarpaulin, which, yielding to his weight, soused him into the water They left him to kick and splash awhile, then pulled him out and ran him forward into the head, where they secured him to the windlass till the sun should have somewhat dried him.

But long before the sun had had time to comfort the shivering little creature Herne Bay had hove into sight. The helm was shifted, and the cutter ran close into the land, where they hove her to whilst Plum and Robins got the boat over.

Mr. Sloper was then dropped over the side into the boat, which pulled ashore, landed him, and returned; and a few minutes later the cutter was standing for the mouth of the river, leaving the tailor on the Herne Bay beach, forty miles from home without a farthing in his pocket.

This is the historic incident of the Thames which I desire to rescue from the oblivion that has overtaken many greater matters. Mr. Sloper, on his return to Labour's Retreat, and when he was somewhat recovered in nerves and health, sued Joe Westlake in the Whitechapel County Court, in action of tort, laying his damages at the moderate sum of fifty pounds. Mr. G.E. Williams, for the defendant, contended that the plaintiff deserved the treatment which he had brought on himself, and the Judge, after hearing the evidence, said that although the plaintiff, Sloper, had acted most improperly in loading his guns, the defendant, Westlake, had retaliated too severely, but, under the circumstances, he