“‘If I catch you spying on me agin,’ he ses, ’you’ll wish you’d never been born!’

“’You get aboard and ‘ave a quiet sleep,’ I ses.  ’You’re wandering in your mind.’

“‘The lady you saw me with,’ he ses, looking at me very fierce, ’is a friend o’ mine that I meet sometimes for the sake of her talk.’

“‘Talk!’ I ses, staring at ’im.  ’Talk!  Wot, can’t one woman talk enough for you?  Is your missis dumb? or wot?’

“‘You don’t understand,’ he ses, cocking up ’is nose at me.  ’She’s a interleckshal woman; full of eddication and information.  When my missis talks, she talks about the price o’ things and says she must ’ave more money.  Or else she talks about things I’ve done, or sometimes things I ‘aven’t done.  It’s all one to her.  There’s no pleasure in that sort o’ talk.  It don’t help a man.’

“’I never ‘eard of any talk as did,’ I ses.

“‘I don’t suppose you did,’ he ses, sneering-like.  ’Now, to-night, fust of all, we talked about the House of Lords and whether it ought to be allowed; and arter that she gave me quite a little lecture on insecks.’

“‘It don’t seem proper to me,’ I ses.  ’I ’ave spoke to my wife about ’em once or twice, but I should no more think of talking about such things to a single lady——­’

“He began to jump about agin as if I’d bit ’im, and he ’ad so much to say about my ’ed and blocks of wood that I pretty near lost my temper.  I should ha’ lost it with some men, but ’e was a very stiff-built chap and as hard as nails.

“‘Beer’s your trouble,’ he ses, at last.  ’Fust of all you put it down, and then it climbs up and soaks wot little brains you’ve got.  Wot you want is a kind friend to prevent you from getting it.’

“I don’t know wot it was, but I ’ad a sort of sinking feeling inside as ’e spoke, and next evening, when I saw ’im walk to the end of the jetty with the office-boy and stand there talking to ’im with his ’and on his shoulder, it came on worse than ever.  And I put two and two together when the guv’nor came up to me next day, and, arter talking about ‘dooty’ and ’ow easy it was to get night-watchmen, mentioned in ’a off-’and sort of way that, if I left the wharf at all between six and six, I could stay away altogether.

“I didn’t answer ‘im a word.  I might ha’ told ’im that there was plenty of people arter me ready to give me double the money, but I knew he could never get anybody to do their dooty by the wharf like I ’ad done, so I kept quiet.  It’s the way I treat my missis nowadays, and it pays; in the old days I used to waste my breath answering ’er back.

“I wouldn’t ha’ minded so much if it ‘adn’t ha’ been for that boy.  He used to pass me, as ’e went off of a evening, with a little sly smile on ’is ugly little face, and sometimes when I was standing at the gate he’d give a sniff or two and say that he could smell beer, and he supposed it came from the Bear’s Head.