ce. Dolly followed his example,
filling a garment she called her pinafore with whatever mould or
_debris_ was attainable, and bringing it with much gravity and some
pride to help on the structure of the dyke. A fiction, rather felt than
spoken, got in the air that Sapps Court and its inhabitants would be
overwhelmed as by Noah's flood, except for the exertions of Dave and his
sister. It appealed to some friends of the same age, also inhabitants of
the Court, and with their assistance and sympathy it really seemed--in
this fiction--that a catastrophe might be averted. You may imagine what
a drove of little grubs those children looked in the course of half an
hour. Not that any of them were particularly spruce to begin with.

However, there was the embankment holding back the dirty yellow water;
and now the pump was running on steady-like, there didn't so much come
slopping over to add to the deluge that threatened Sapps Court. The
policeman--the only one supposed to exist, although in form he varied
slightly--made an inquiry as to what was going on, to be beforehand with
Anarchy. He said:--"What are you young customers about, taking the
Company's water?" That seemed to embody an indictment without committing
the accuser to particulars. But he took no active steps, and a very old
man with a fur cap, and no teeth, and big bones in his cheeks,
said:--"It don't make no odds to we, I take it." He was a prehistoric
navvy, who had become a watchman, and was responsible for red lanterns
hooked to posts on the edge of chasms to warn carts off. He was going to
sleep in half a tent, soothed or otherwise by the unflagging piston of
that donkey-engine, which had made up its mind to go till further
notice.

The men were knocking off work, and it was getting on for time for those
children to have their suppers and be put to bed. But as Aunt M'riar had
some trimming to finish, and it was a very fine evening, there was no
harm in leaving them alone a few minutes longer. As for any attractive
influences of supper, those children never come in of theirselves, and
always had to be fetched.

An early lamplighter--for this was in September, 1853--passed along the
street with a ladder, dropping stars as he went. There are no
lamplighters now, no real ones that run up ladders. Their ladders
vanished first, leaving them with a magic wand that lighted the gas as
soon as you got the tap turned; only that was ever so long, as often as
not. Perha