Barnardo and others of similar spirit, in rescuing waifs like himself
from their wretched condition.

"Though some on us don't think it so wretched arter all," he continued.
"There's the Slogger, now, he won't go into the 'ome on no
consideration; says he wouldn't give a empty sugar-barrel for all the
'omes in London. But then the Slogger's a lazy muff. He don't want to
work--that's about it. He'd sooner starve than work. By consikence he
steals, more or less, an finds a 'ome in the `stone jug' pretty
frequent. As to his taste for a sugar-barrel, I ain't so sure that I
don't agree with 'im. It's big, you know--plenty of room to move, w'ich
it ain't so with a flour-barrel. An' then the smell! Oh! you've no
notion! W'y, that's wuth the price of a night's lodgin' itself, to say
nothin' o' the chance of a knot-hole or a crack full o' sugar, that the
former tenants has failed to diskiver."

While the waif was commenting thus enthusiastically on the bliss of
lodging in a sugar-barrel, we were surprised to see Dumps, who chanced
to be trotting on in front come to a sudden pause and gaze at a lady who
was in the act of ringing the door-bell of an adjoining house.

The door was opened by a footman, and the lady was in the act of
entering when Dumps gave vent to a series of sounds, made up of a whine,
a bark, and a yelp. At the same moment his tail all but twirled him off
his legs as he rushed wildly up the stairs and began to dance round the
lady in mad excitement.

The lady backed against the door in alarm. The footman, anxious
apparently about his calves, seized an umbrella and made a wild assault
on the dog, and I was confusedly conscious of Slidder exclaiming, "Why,
if that ain't _my_ young lady!" as I sprang up the steps to the rescue.

"Down, Dumps, you rascal; down!" I exclaimed, seizing him by the brass
collar with which I had invested him.--"Pardon the rudeness of my dog,
madam," I said, looking up; "I never saw him act in this way before. It
is quite unaccountable--"

"Not quite so unaccountable as you think," interrupted Slidder, who
stood looking calmly on, with his hands in his pockets and a grin on his
face.--"It's your own dog, miss."

"What do you mean, boy?" said the lady, a gaze of surprise chasing away
the look of alarm which had covered her pretty face.

"I mean 'xactly what I says, miss. The dog's your own: I sold it to you
long ago for five bob!"

The girl--for she was little more t