for?
Do yer give it up? I do."

"'Cos it's on tick!" pronounced the pipe.

I could have howled to find myself the victim of such a low, villainous
joke, that had not even the pretence of wit, and I could have cried to
see how that greasy string wriggled and snuffled at my expense.

"My eye, mate! that's a good 'un! Do you hear, Turnip? you're on tick,
you know, like the weskit. Oh, my eye! that'll do, mate; another o'
them will kill me. Oh, turn it up! do you hear? On tick!-- hoo, hoo,
hoo! Do you hear, Turnip? _tick_!"

Need I say I spent a sad and sleepless night? When my disgust admitted
of thought I could not help reflecting how very happy some vulgar people
can be with a very little sense, and how very unhappy other people who
flatter themselves they are very clever and superior can at times find
themselves.

By the time I had satisfied myself of this my master uncurled himself
and got up.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

HOW I CHANGED MASTERS TWICE IN TWO DAYS, AND AFTER ALL FOUND MYSELF IN
PAWN.

It was scarcely four o'clock when my lord and master arose from his
brief repose, and sallied through the rain and darkness back in the
direction of the city. He was far less anxious to salute the police now
than he had been a few hours ago. He slunk down the back streets, and
now and then darted up a court at the sound of approaching foot steps;
or retreated for some distance by the way he had come, in order to
strike a less guarded street.

In this manner he pursued his way for about an hour, till he reached a
very narrow street of tumble-down houses, not far from Holborn. Down
this he wended his way till he stood before a door belonging to one of
the oldest, dingiest, and most decayed houses in all the street. Here
he gave a peculiar scrape with his foot along the bottom of the door,
and then sat down on the doorstep.

Presently a voice came through the keyhole, in a whisper.

"That you, Stumpy?" it said.

"Yas," replied my master.

"All clear?"

Stumpy looked up and down the street and then hurriedly whispered, "No."

Instantly the voice within was silent, and Stumpy was to all appearance
sleeping soundly and heavily, as if tired nature in him had fairly
reached its last strait.

The distant footsteps came nearer; and still he slept on, snoring gently
and regularly. The policeman advanced leisurely, turning his lantern
first on this doorway, then on that window; trying now a shutter-bar,
the