here was Californian
gold in the museums and in the goldsmiths' shops, and the very first time
I went upon 'Change, I met a friend of mine (a seafaring man like
myself), with a Californian nugget hanging to his watch-chain. I handled
it. It was as like a peeled walnut with bits unevenly broken off here
and there, and then electrotyped all over, as ever I saw anything in my
life.

I am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, and she
died six weeks before our marriage-day), so when I am ashore, I live in
my house at Poplar. My house at Poplar is taken care of and kept ship-
shape by an old lady who was my mother's maid before I was born. She is
as handsome and as upright as any old lady in the world. She is as fond
of me as if she had ever had an only son, and I was he. Well do I know
wherever I sail that she never lays down her head at night without having
said, "Merciful Lord! bless and preserve William George Ravender, and
send him safe home, through Christ our Saviour!" I have thought of it in
many a dangerous moment, when it has done me no harm, I am sure.

In my house at Poplar, along with this old lady, I lived quiet for best
part of a year: having had a long spell of it among the Islands, and
having (which was very uncommon in me) taken the fever rather badly. At
last, being strong and hearty, and having read every book I could lay
hold of, right out, I was walking down Leadenhall Street in the City of
London, thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I call Smithick and
Watersby of Liverpool. I chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a
ship's chronometer in a window, and I saw him bearing down upon me, head
on.

It is, personally, neither Smithick, nor Watersby, that I here mention,
nor was I ever acquainted with any man of either of those names, nor do I
think that there has been any one of either of those names in that
Liverpool House for years back. But, it is in reality the House itself
that I refer to; and a wiser merchant or a truer gentleman never stepped.

"My dear Captain Ravender," says he. "Of all the men on earth, I wanted
to see you most. I was on my way to you."

"Well!" says I. "That looks as if you _were_ to see me, don't it?" With
that I put my arm in his, and we walked on towards the Royal Exchange,
and when we got there, walked up and down at the back of it where the
Clock-Tower is. We walked an hour and more, for he had much to say to
me. He had