had been sufficiently debilitated by
the burden of an expensive contest to make all resistance impossible.
Heaven knows if either of them seriously believed this. At all events,
they said it to each other, and so often, so circumstantially, and so
energetically that it would be very rash in us to entertain a doubt of
their sincerity.

"I have been recommended to a house kept by a Mrs. Seacole," said
Classon, as they landed on the busy quay, where soldiers and sailors
and land-transport men, with Turks, Wallachs, Tartars, and Greeks, were
performing a small Babel of their own.

"God help me!" exclaimed Terry, plaintively, "I 'm like a new-born child
here; I know nobody, nor how to ask for anything."

"Come along with me, then. There are worse couriers than Paul Classon."
And bustling his way through the crowd, his Reverence shouldered his
carpet-bag, and pushed forward.

It was, indeed, a rare good fortune for Terry to have fallen upon a
fellow-traveller so gifted and so accomplished; for not only did
Paul seem a perfect polyglot, but he possessed that peculiar bustling
activity your regular traveller acquires, by which, on his very entrance
into an inn, he assumes the position less of guest than of one
in authority and in administration. And so now Paul had speedily
investigated the resources of the establishment, and ordered an
excellent supper, while poor Driscoll was still pottering about his
room, or vainly endeavoring to uncord a portmanteau which a sailor had
fastened more ingeniously than necessary.

"I wish I knew what he was," muttered Terry to himself. "He 'd be the
very man to help me in this business, if I could trust him."

Was it a strange coincidence that at the same moment Paul Classon should
be saying to himself, "That fellow's simplicity would be invaluable if I
could only enlist him in our cause; he is a fool well worth two wise men
at this conjuncture"?

The sort of coffee-room where they supped was densely crowded by
soldiers, sailors, and civilians of every imaginable class and
condition. Bronzed, weather-beaten captains, come off duty for a good
dinner and a bottle of real wine at Mother Seacole's, now mingled with
freshly arrived subs, who had never even seen their regiments; surgeons,
commissaries, naval lieutenants, Queen's messengers, and army chaplains
were all there, talking away, without previous acquaintance with each
other, in all the frankness of men who felt absolved from the r