good then. I sold my gun for sixty dollars,
half what it was worth, and did jobbing enough to keep me alive. I
worked as a waiter on a steamer, in place of a sick man, for a month,
and left the boat at Silver Spring, where the man took his place. I
hired a gun, and tried to get a living by shooting again; but I
couldn't find a market for the game. I had to give it up.

"I had a lot of alligators' teeth, a rattlesnake, which a gentleman on
a steamer offered to give me ten dollars for in Jacksonville, and I
worked my way down here. I sold the teeth; but the man that wanted the
rattlesnake was at St. Augustine, and I had to wait till he came back,
on his way north. Boomsby's wife turned me out when she found she
didn't like me, and they killed the snake at the St. Johns. I couldn't
stay there any longer now I had lost the ten dollars for the snake. My
money was all gone; but I picked up a little selling babies."

"Selling babies!" exclaimed Washburn.

"Baby alligators, I mean," added Cobbington, with a languid smile. "My
health was good while I was in the woods; I don't have any cough now,
but I've been running down lately."

Poor fellow! My heart was touched for him. It was hard to grub for a
bare subsistence, with the immediate prospect of dying in the street.
Washburn looked expressively at me, and I nodded to him. We rose from
the table, and told Cobbington to come with us. We took him to a
clothing-house, fitted him out with a new suit, yacht-club style, with
a white canvas cap like my own, except the gold band. We supplied him
with under-clothing, and with everything he needed, even to
handkerchiefs, socks, and shoes. Having obtained these, one-half of the
cost of which Washburn insisted upon paying, we next visited a
bath-house, where the invalid "washed and was clean." He then clothed
himself in the new clothes, and came out of the bath-room looking like
another person.

We went to the wharf, where we obtained a boat, and in a few minutes we
were on board. I formally engaged the man to take the place of Griffin
Leeds, as the waiter at the mess in the forward cabin. He had served in
this capacity in an hotel, and on steamers on the St. Johns and
Ocklawaha rivers. I gave him a berth in the forward cabin. I think he
was happy when he turned into it.

On Sunday I went to church in St. James Square, and called upon Owen as
I came out. Colonel Shepard informed me that he had chartered a steamer
that plied on the