and helpless, I cannot say. Once I was
just conscious of a slight jerk from my chain as he peeped in and
whispered,--

"What are you so quiet about down there?"

Of course I could not answer.

"Do you hear? What are you so quiet about?"

It only added to my misery to know that there was a fellow-being so
close at hand, and yet that I was powerless to make him aware of my
condition. My silence offended him, for he turned away, muttering to
himself,--

"Sulky humbug! I declare some people haven't so much as the manners of
a kitchen clock."

After that I was left to myself, in agony and suspense, to wait the
moment of my dissolution.

A long time passed before my master stirred, and when he did the
housekeeper's tea was cold. She bustled about to make him some more,
and was so kind in buttering his toast and hunting for some jam, that
the drooping spirits of the tired-out boy revived wonderfully. Indeed,
as the meal proceeded he became on friendly and confidential terms even
with so awful a personage as Mrs Packer.

"Would you like to see my knife, ma'am?" he asked.

"Bless me, what a knife it is," cried the lady. "You'll go doing
yourself some harm with it."

"That's what the other old lady in the train said," replied Charlie,
unconscious of wounding the feelings of his hostess, who fondly imagined
she was not more than middle-aged; "but then, you know, she thought it
was a fine knife, and I think so too, don't you? I say, marm, do you
know Tom Drift?"

The change of subject was so sudden that Mrs Packer stared at the boy,
half wondering whether he was not talking in his sleep.

"What about him?" she inquired.

"Oh, only the old lady was his mother, and I promised her--at least she
said--do you know Tom Drift, ma'am?"

"To be sure; he's one of the boys here."

"Yes--I say, ma'am, might I see Tom Drift, do you think? I've got
something to say to him."

Mrs Packer, wholly at a loss to understand her youthful guest, but at
the same time disposed to be indulgent to his little whims, said Tom
would be at lessons now, and she didn't think he would be able to come.

"Wouldn't it do in the morning?"

"Oh no," said Charlie, with the gravest face. "I must see him to-night,
please, if you don't mind."

The housekeeper concluded that Charlie had some important message from
the mother to her son, and therefore rang for a servant, whom she
despatched with a message to Master Drift that some one want