The city!  Now I never heard of any one in any story going out into the world to seek his fortune, and coming to a city, who did not go into it to see what was to be seen.  Leaving the king’s only daughter and those kinds of things, which belong to story-books, out of the question, I do not believe the captain would have passed a new city without looking into it.

“You go down the river to Fenchurch Street—­in a barge?” I suggested.

“Bless ye, no, sir!” said Mr. Smith, getting the smoke of his pipe down his throat the wrong way with laughing, till I thought his coughing-fit would never allow him to give me the important information I required.  “There’s boats, sir, plenty on ’em.  I could take you myself, and be thankful, and there’s steamers calls at the wharf every quarter of an hour or so through the day, from nine in the morning, and takes you to London Bridge for threepence.  It ain’t many minutes’ walk to Fenchurch Street, and the train takes you straight to the Docks.”

After this we conversed on general seafaring matters.  Mr. Smith was not a very able-bodied man, in consequence of many years’ service in unhealthy climates, he said; and he complained of his trade as a “poor one,” and very different from what it had been in his father’s time, and before new London Bridge was built, which “anybody and anything could get through” now without watermen’s assistance.  In his present depressed condition he seemed to look back on his seafaring days with pride and tender regret, and when we asked for tales of his adventures he was checked by none of the scruples which withheld Mr. Rowe from encouraging me to be a sailor.

“John’s berth” proved to be a truckle-bed in a closet which just held it, and which also held more nasty smells than I could have believed there was room for.  Opening the window seemed only to let in fresh ones.  When Fred threw himself on his face on the bed, and said, “What a beastly hole!” and cried bitterly, I was afraid he was going to be ill; and when I had said my prayers and persuaded him to say his and come to bed, I thought that if we got safely through the night we would make the return voyage with Mr. Rowe, and for the future leave events and emergencies to those who liked danger and discomfort.

But when we woke with the sun shining on our faces, and through the little window beheld it sparkling on the river below us, and on the distant city, we felt all right again, and stuck to our plans.

“Let’s go by the city,” said Fred, “I should like to see some of the town.”

“If we don’t get off before half-past nine we’re lost,” said I.

We found an unexpected clog in Mr. Smith, who seemed inclined to stick to us and repeat the stories he had told us overnight.  At about half-past eight, however, he went off to his boat, saying he supposed we should wait for Mr. Rowe, and when his wife went into a neighbour’s house I laid a shilling on the table, and Fred and I slipped out and made our way to the pier.