of the
above-mentioned idlers.

The first summoned walked away without noticing them, another stared, a
third exclaimed, "Egregious snob! what can he want?" and a fourth walked
up with his fists doubled, crying out in a furious tone, "How do you
dare to make faces at me, you young scoundrel?"

"Pardon me, sir," said James, quietly; "my brother made no faces at you.
We merely thought that you might be willing to assist in carrying our
luggage."

"I assist you in carrying your luggage! A good joke! But I see you are
not quite what I took you for; and if you'll stand a nobbler or two, I
don't mind calling a porter for you, and showing you to a slap-up inn to
suit you," said the man, his manner completely changing. "You'll have
to pay the porter pretty handsomely, my new chums! People don't work
for nothing in this country."

While they were hesitating about accepting the man's offer to get a
porter, thinking that there could be no harm in that, a country lad, Sam
Green by name, who had come out as a steerage passenger with them,
approached. As soon as he saw them he ran up exclaiming--

"Oh, Master Gilpins, there's a chap been and run off wi' all my traps,
and I've not a rag left, but just what I stand in!"

Sam was, of course, glad enough to assist in carrying their luggage.
James apologised to the stranger, saying he would not trouble him.

"Not so fast, young chum!" exclaimed the man. "You promised me a couple
of nobblers, and engaged me to call a porter. I'm not going to let you
off so easily! Down with the tin, or come and stand the treat!"

The Gilpins were rather more inclined to laugh at the man than to be
angry; certainly they had no intention of paying him. Perhaps their
looks expressed this. He was becoming more and more blustering, when a
cry from several people was heard; and looking up the street, an open
carriage with a pair of horses was seen dashing down towards the water
at a furious rate. There was no coachman on the box, but that there was
some one in the carriage James discovered by seeing a shawl fluttering
from the side, and by hearing a piercing shriek, uttered apparently as
if then, for the first time, the lady had discovered the imminence of
her danger. In a few seconds the carriage would have been dragged over
the quay and into water many fathoms deep.

"Stop the horses! Fifty--a hundred--five hundred pounds to whoever will
do it!" shouted a man's voice from within.

Rig