's
a very good one. I never forget anything."

"You forget yourself, ma'am," returned her victim, with unconscious
ambiguity, and, closing the door behind her, returned to the parlour to
try and think of some means of escaping from the position to which the
ingenuity of Captain Nibletts, aided by that of Mrs. Banks, had brought
him.

CHAPTER XIX.

OPPONENTS of medicine have hit upon a means of cleansing the system by
abstaining for a time from food, and drinking a quantity of fair water.
It is stated to clear the eyes and the skin, and to cause a feeling of
lightness and buoyancy undreamt of by those who have never tried it.
All people, perhaps, are not affected exactly alike, and Captain Flower,
while admitting the lightness, would have disdainfully contested any
charge of buoyancy. Against this objection it may be said, that he was
not a model patient, and had on several occasions wilfully taken steps
to remove the feeling of lightness.

It was over a fortnight since his return to London. The few shillings
obtained for his watch had disappeared days before; rent was due and
the cupboard was empty. The time seemed so long to him, that Poppy
and Seabridge and the _Foam_ might have belonged to another period of
existence. At the risk of detection he had hung round the Wheelers night
after night for a glimpse of the girl for whom he was enduring all these
hardships, but without success. He became a prey to nervousness and,
unable to endure the suspense any longer, determined to pay a stealthy
visit to Wapping and try and see Fraser.

He chose the night on which in the ordinary state of affairs the
schooner should be lying alongside the wharf; and keeping a keen lookout
for friends and foes both, made his way to the Minories and down Tower
Hill. He had pictured it as teeming with people he knew, and the bare
street and closed warehouses, with a chance docker or two slouching
slowly along, struck him with an odd sense of disappointment. The place
seemed changed. He hurried past the wharf; that too was deserted, and
after a loving peep at the spars of his schooner he drifted slowly
across the road to the Albion, and, pushing the door a little way open,
peeped cautiously in. The faces were all unfamiliar, and letting the
door swing quietly back he walked on until he came to the Town of
Yarmouth.

The public bar was full. Tired workers were trying to forget the labours
of the day in big draughts of beer, while on