between the crews of a tinklerman's boat and the
water-bailiffs. Shouting his war-cry, "St. Mary Overy a la rescousse!"
the water-bailiff sprung at the throat of the tinklerman captain. The
crews of both vessels, as if aware that the struggle of their chiefs
would decide the contest, ceased hostilities, and awaited on their
respective poops the issue of the death-shock. It was not long
coming. "Yield, dog!" said the water-bailiff. The tinklerman could not
answer--for his throat was grasped too tight in the iron clench of the
city champion; but drawing his snickersnee, he plunged it seven times in
the bailiff's chest: still the latter fell not. The death-rattle gurgled
in the throat of his opponent; his arms fell heavily to his side.
Foot to foot, each standing at the side of his boat, stood the brave
men--THEY WERE BOTH DEAD! "In the name of St. Clement Danes," said the
master, "give way, my men!" and, thrusting forward his halberd (seven
feet long, richly decorated with velvet and brass nails, and having
the city arms, argent, a cross gules, and in the first quarter a dagger
displayed of the second), he thrust the tinklerman's boat away from his
own; and at once the bodies of the captains plunged down, down, down,
down in the unfathomable waters.

After this follows another episode. Two masked ladies quarrel at the
door of a tavern overlooking the Thames: they turn out to be Stella and
Vanessa, who have followed Swift thither; who is in the act of reading
"Gulliver's Travels" to Gay, Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke, and Pope. Two
fellows are sitting shuddering under a doorway; to one of them Tom
Billings flung a sixpence. He little knew that the names of those two
young men were--Samuel Johnson and Richard Savage.)

ANOTHER LAST CHAPTER.

Mr. Hayes did not join the family the next day; and it appears that
the previous night's reconciliation was not very durable; for when Mrs.
Springatt asked Wood for Hayes, Mr. Wood stated that Hayes had gone away
without saying whither he was bound, or how long he might be absent.
He only said, in rather a sulky tone, that he should probably pass the
night at a friend's house. "For my part, I know of no friend he hath,"
added Mr. Wood; "and pray Heaven that he may not think of deserting his
poor wife, whom he hath beaten and ill-used so already!" In this prayer
Mrs. Springatt joined; and so these two worthy people parted.

What business Billings was about cannot be said; but he was