ood for the Boarding-House, I am not good
for anything in your way to the extent of sixpenn'orth of halfpence. Put
the idea aside, and we shall get on together.'

'But you're a seafaring man?' argued Pleasant, as if that were a
sufficient reason for his being good for something in her way.

'Yes and no. I have been, and I may be again. But I am not for you.
Won't you take my word for it?'

The conversation had arrived at a crisis to justify Miss Pleasant's hair
in tumbling down. It tumbled down accordingly, and she twisted it up,
looking from under her bent forehead at the man. In taking stock of his
familiarly worn rough-weather nautical clothes, piece by piece, she took
stock of a formidable knife in a sheath at his waist ready to his hand,
and of a whistle hanging round his neck, and of a short jagged knotted
club with a loaded head that peeped out of a pocket of his loose
outer jacket or frock. He sat quietly looking at her; but, with these
appendages partially revealing themselves, and with a quantity
of bristling oakum-coloured head and whisker, he had a formidable
appearance.

'Won't you take my word for it?' he asked again.

Pleasant answered with a short dumb nod. He rejoined with another short
dumb nod. Then he got up and stood with his arms folded, in front of
the fire, looking down into it occasionally, as she stood with her arms
folded, leaning against the side of the chimney-piece.

'To wile away the time till your father comes,' he said,--'pray is there
much robbing and murdering of seamen about the water-side now?'

'No,' said Pleasant.

'Any?'

'Complaints of that sort are sometimes made, about Ratcliffe and Wapping
and up that way. But who knows how many are true?'

'To be sure. And it don't seem necessary.'

'That's what I say,' observed Pleasant. 'Where's the reason for it?
Bless the sailors, it ain't as if they ever could keep what they have,
without it.'

'You're right. Their money may be soon got out of them, without
violence,' said the man.

'Of course it may,' said Pleasant; 'and then they ship again and get
more. And the best thing for 'em, too, to ship again as soon as ever
they can be brought to it. They're never so well off as when they're
afloat.'

'I'll tell you why I ask,' pursued the visitor, looking up from the
fire. 'I was once beset that way myself, and left for dead.'

'No?' said Pleasant. 'Where did it happen?'

'It happened,' returned the man, with a ruminative