nd of the street, or rather road; for
by this time, they were past even the little suburbs of the town.
Quickening his steps, the barrister, as he had announced himself to be,
was glad to catch a glimpse of the two worthies, seated under a fence
several minutes after he had believed them lost. They were making a frugal
meal, off the contents of a little bag which the white had borne under his
arm and from which he now dispensed liberally to his companion, who had
taken his post sufficiently nigh to proclaim that perfect amity was
restored, though still a little in the back ground, in deference to the
superior condition which the other enjoyed through favour of his colour.
Approaching the spot, the stranger observed,--

"If you make so free with the bag, my lads, your third man may have to go
supperless to bed."

"Who hails?" said Dick, looking up from his bone, with an expression much
like that of a mastiff when engaged at a similar employment.

"I merely wished to remind you that you had another messmate," cavalierly
returned the other.

"Will you take a cut, brother?" said the seaman, offering the bag, with
the liberality of a sailor, the moment he fancied there was an indirect
demand made on its contents.

"You still mistake my meaning; on the wharf you had another companion."

"Ay, ay; he is in the offing there, overhauling that bit of a light-house,
which is badly enough moored unless they mean it to shew the channel to
your ox-teams and inland traders; hereaway, gentlemen, where you see that
pile of stones which seems likely to be coming down shortly by-the-run."

The stranger looked in the direction indicated by the other, and saw the
young mariner, to whom he had alluded, standing at the foot of a ruined
tower, which was crumbling under the slow operations of time, at no great
distance from the place where he stood. Throwing a handful of small change
to the seamen, he wished them a better meal, and crossed the fence, with
an apparent intention of examining the ruin also.

"The lad is free with his coppers," said Dick, suspending the movements of
his teeth, to give the stranger another and a better look; "but, as they
will not grow where he has planted them, S'ip, you may turn them over to
my pocket. An off-handed and a free-handed chap that, Africa; but then
these law-dealers get all their pence of the devil, and they are sure of
more, when the shot begins to run low in the locker."

Leaving the negro t