hen I last heard of him.

/*
ROBERT RICHARDSON.
*/

LITTLE TOILERS OF THE NIGHT.

II THE FISHER-BOY.

"Benny, so here we are then," said the sturdy-looking sailor, as Ben,
the "Reading-Boy," went running up to the railway station at Liverpool
Street, London, just as the last shower of night rain was blowing away
over the houses, and the sun was just peeping out and giving the grey
sky a tint of salmon colour. "I'm glad as you've got from this mornin'
to Wednesday, Benny, becos you see it's a pretty long v'yge from here to
Yarmouth, and I'm glad you're in good time, Ben; an' I'm glad as your
precious mother has made you put a coat over your jacket. 5.15 the train
goes, Ben."

"What fun it is, eh, uncle! Only fancy my going down to the sea! Why, I
shouldn't want to come back if it wasn't for mother."

"Now don't you be a rollin' stone, Benny. It's all very fine for fair
weather sailors, to go and sit about on the beach, and p'raps be rowed
out a little way, or take a trip when everything's smooth below and
aloft, but just you find yerself aboard one of our smacks, in the North
Sea, one night when there's a stiff sea on, and the wind cuttin' your
hair off your head, and your hands stiff and blue with haulin' on to the
trawl-nets, and you'd tell a different story. No, no, I don't _think_ as
you're cut out for a fisher-boy, or leastways a smack-boy, for that's
what they call 'em."

"A smack-boy! that's a queer name," said Ben, laughing.

"Ah, ain't it? and there's a double meanin' in it too, for I can tell
you the smack-men ain't very slow for to give the youngsters a knock
over the head, or a smack of the face, or a rope's-endin'. But as it's
Yarmouth we're bound for, you will soon see what our fisheries are
really like; and there, too, you'll find our men hard at it in
tarpaulins or canvas frocks, and wet through and through perhaps, and
not much time to get a drop of hot coffee nor a bit to eat. Think of
that, Benny."

Ben looked serious when he heard this, and it was not till they had
taken their seats in the railway-carriage, and were rattling along far
beyond the houses and amidst the trees and fields of the country that he
began to talk again.

"Don't the boys that go fishing like their business?" he asked.

"Well, you see," said his uncle, "they've _got_ to like it, because when
they're once in it they can't well turn to anything else. It's a rough,
hard life, especially for the young 'uns, Be