To have attained such wisdom at twenty-five is not to have lived altogether in vain.

A park-keeper presently arrived to unlock the gates, and the band of outcasts straggled indolently towards the nearest sheltered seats.  Some went to sleep at once, in a sitting posture.  Darkey produced a clay pipe, and, charging it with a few shreds of tobacco laboriously gathered from his waistcoat pocket, began to smoke.  He was accustomed to this sort of thing, and with a pipe in his mouth could contrive to be moderately philosophical upon occasion.  He looked curiously at his companion, who lay stretched at full length on another bench.

‘I say, pal,’ he remarked, ’I’ve known ye two days; ye’ve never told me yer name, and I don’t ask ye to.  But I see ye’ve not slep’ in a park before.’

‘You hit it, Darkey; but how?’

’Well, if the keeper catches ye lying down, he’ll be on to ye.  Lying down’s not allowed.’

The man raised himself on his elbow.

‘Really now,’ he said; ’that’s interesting.  But I think I’ll give the keeper the opportunity of moving me.  Why, it’s quite fine, the sun’s coming out, and the sparrows are hopping round—­cheeky little devils!  I’m not sure that I don’t feel jolly.’

‘I wish I’d got the price of a pint about me,’ sighed Darkey, and the other man dropped his head and appeared to sleep.  Then Darkey dozed a little, and heard in his waking sleep the heavy, crunching tread of an approaching park-keeper; he started up to warn his companion, but thought better of it, and closed his eyes again.

‘Now then, there,’ the park-keeper shouted to the man with the sailor’s cap, ‘get up!  This ain’t a fourpenny doss, you know.  No lying down.’

A rough shake accompanied the words, and the man sat up.

‘All right, my friend.’

The keeper, who was a good-humoured man, passed on without further objurgation.

The face of the younger man had grown whiter.

‘Look here, Darkey,’ he said, ‘I believe I’m done for.’

‘Never say die.’

‘No, just die without speaking.’

His head fell forward and his eyes closed.

‘At any rate, this is better than some deaths I’ve seen,’ he began again with a strange accession of liveliness.  ’Darkey, did I tell you the story of the five Japanese girls?’

‘What, in Suez Bay?’ said Darkey, who had heard many sea-stories during the last two days, and recollected them but hazily.

’No, man.  This was at Nagasaki.  We were taking in a cargo of coal for Hong Kong.  Hundreds of little Jap girls pass the coal from hand to hand over the ship’s side in tiny baskets that hold about a plateful.  In that way you can get three thousand tons aboard in two days.’

‘Talking of platefuls reminds me of sausage and mash,’ said Darkey.

’Don’t interrupt.  Well, five of these gay little dolls wanted to go to Hong Kong, and they arranged with the Chinese sailors to stow away; I believe their friends paid those cold-blooded fiends something to pass them down food on the voyage, and give them an airing at nights.  We had a particularly lively trip, battened everything down tight, and scarcely uncovered till we got into port.  Then I and another man found those five girls among the coal.’