They look up to us, sir, and they should." He spoke as "But it isn't all sailing with

a skipper, sir, and you'll know. envy our position. It's natural if he was an admiral at least. the sou'-west trade wind aft. Some of us drink. That's bad. Now, beyond my four or five goes of grog of a night, a pannikin or so of a morning, another about noon, and one or two after dinner, I never did drink. I'm not one of your everlasting nippers. And what's the consequence, sir? Here I am, sound in limb at fifty-five. Pensioned off by my noble firm after forty years service, and happy for the rest of my days.'

He paused, and rang the bell.

"Bring the usual, Mary, and two tumblers. You shall have a glass of my rum to-night, Mr. Melliship. What was I a-saying?"

"You were saying that you were going to be happy for the rest of your days. So I suppose you are going to take a wife, Captain Bowker."

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"A wife! The Lord forbid! No, sir, I did that oncefifteen years ago—once too often. Ah! well-she's dead; at least, I suppose so." He turned quite pale, and beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. "Well, let that pass. What kept me from drink was, that I had a resource which is given to few men. Do you compose, sir ?"

Compose? Music ?" "No-music-nonsense?

Anybody can make music. Verses, sir,-immortal verses. That's what I used to spend my time in doing when I was below in the cabin. Now here" -he pulled a folded and frayed piece of paper out of his pocket-"here is a copy I made in my last voyage home. Read it, and tell me candidly what you think of it." Frank opened it. It began―

""Tis fearful, when the running gear is taut,

And creaking davits yield a frail support."

"Hem! Rhyme rather halts here, doesn't it? Shall I read the rest at my leisure, Captain Bowker ?"

"No, no-no time like the present. Give me hold, young man. Now, then-stand by-here's the rum. So, sit steady, and listen."

He read his composition. Frank listened as one in a dream. What next? To sing in a music hall, to live at Skimp's, to sit at the same table with Captain Hamilton, to hear Captain

Bowker read his verses: this was not encouraging. He would have to go to the Palace in the morning, to rehearsal. After all, it is necessary to live. At least, one would be able to pay one's way on three guineas a week.

"So, like the Doldrums' calm, his on ward way

Is checked who dares thy laws to disobey."

It was the termination of Captain Bowker's poem.
Frank woke up.

"Very good indeed, Captain Bowker. The last lines especially very good. They remind me of Pope.

So, like the Doldrums' onward way, his calm

Is checked who dares to-" "}

"Not quite right," said the divine bard, with a smile. "But you are not a sailor. Shall I read it again ?"

"No, don't-pray don't."

"I won't. Let us talk."

That meant, "Let me talk."

Frank lay back in his easy chair, and dreamed of Grace, and the pleasant country-side. How was he to win her ;how to pay off those debts? It was not a hopeful reverie. There are times when the veil of illusion falls off. It is at best but a fog, most common in the morning of life, and extremely pretty when the sun shines upon it. It was fallen now. Frank measured the distance between himself and Grace, and saw that it was widening every day.

Captain Bowker recalled him. He was maundering on :"when I commanded the Merry Moonshine, in the Chinese coolie trade, running to Trinidad. It was an anxious time, because we had four hundred of them aboard, and not too much rice. They used to murder each other-ten, a dozen or so-every night. That lessened the numbers."

"What did they do that for ?"

"What do men always fight about? Then we had bad weather-terrible bad weather; got on the edge of a cyclone. We had the coolies battened down 'tween decks: and what with the noise of the storm, and the cries of them wild cats, and the mainmast going by the board, I do assure you it was as much as I could do to get that poem finished. As it was, it wasn't really finished till I got home-for there was a lot more unpleasantness. We put in at Allegoey Bay; and directly the coolies caught sight of land, I'm blest if forty or fifty didn't chuck themselves out of the ports and overboard, to swim ashore. 1

do not remember," he said, stroking his nose"I do not remember hearing that any of them got there. There's sharks off that coast, you know. But think of the loss it was to me!"

CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.

FTER walking through a number of narrow and dark passages, Frank found himself at last in the North London Palace of Amusement and Aristocratic Lounge.

Dingy and dirty by daylight it appeared.

Plenty of light-to show the tawdry, gas and smoke-tarnished state of the decorations-came in through a lantern in the great domed roof; for the place had once been a daylight exhibition -a sort of superior Polytechnic, started at the same time as the mechanics' institutes, whither it was thought the people would eagerly flock to improve their minds. Mr. Leweson's company could therefore rehearse comfortably without the gas-except on very dark and foggy days.

The features of the building struck Frank as something familiar. His father and the flavour of Bath buns flashed upon him; for memory mixes incongruous elements as old recollections pour upon us. He had once been taken there as

a little boy, when what was now a music hall had been the Lyceum. The place had now, however, tumbled down from its high estate, and in its fall had ruined half a dozen speculators before the genius of a Leweson made it

pay.

Frank looked round. It was the same place-he was sure of that; though how changed was all about him!

He remembered the great, bare hall, with half a dozen dreary electric machines; the galleries, round which geological specimens were arranged; its side wings, where were displayed such objects as ancient British pottery, specimens of early type, botanical collections, and other dry and improv

ing things. He remembered how he had been led round, wearily yawning, with a party of girls who began by yawning too, and ended by snapping at each other. All the time there had been the buzz of a lecturer's voice, as he addressed an audience consisting of an uncle and two miserable nephews, on the more recent improvements in machinery employed in the manufacture of cotton fabrics. And he remembered how his heart lightened up when they came to a refreshment stall, and everybody had a cake.

He rubbed his eyes, and looked round. Yes-it was the same place; but where the electric machines had stood was now a stage, where the geological collection had formerly been was now a row of private boxes. The apparatus had all disappeared: only the refreshment-room remained, and this was vastly increased and improved.

"Here we are," said Mr. Leweson.

"This is where the

loonatics come every night to stare, and listen, and drink. Amuse yourself by looking for half an hour or so.'

"I have been here before," Frank began.

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Everybody comes here-it's one of the sights of London," said Mr. Leweson, interrupting him; "and the loonaticsIt was Frank's turn to interrupt.

"I mean years ago, when it used to be called the Lyceum. I was a boy then."

"Phyoo!" the proprietor whistled. "Ah! quite another thing. It was a Limited Li Company.

It would have smashed 'em all up instead of being smashed itself, if it hadn't been. It has been lots of things since then. Nobody made it pay till I took it in hand. Mark me," continued Mr. Leweson, with great gravity, and in his deepest voice—

66

'Well, sir."

"That'll be the end of that round place they're building at Kensington."

What, the Albert Hall?" cried Frank.

"Yes; certain to come to it-only a question of time. Be a place just like this, and with the Horticultural Gardens at the back to walk out into and dance in the summer- —Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and Cremorne thrown into one would be nothing to it. I'd give-I'd give-there, I don't know what I wouldn't give a year for that place, with the gardens thrown in; and pay the biggest dividend that ever was paid by anything in this world before."

"But, my dear sir," Frank began, shaking his head.

"Ah, you may laugh and I may not, and I dare say I shall not, live to see it, but that is the future of those two places, as sure as eggs are eggs-take my word for it. But, there, I must leave you and attend to my business-they want me. Go anywhere you like, only not on the stage just yetyou'd be in the way. The new ballet is just coming on.'

Mr. Leweson left Frank in front of the stage, and disappeared himself down a trap-door in the orchestra.

Frank took a seat in a box near the stage, and looked about him.

The scene was new to him, and, apart from the novelty, was interesting in itself.

The curtain was up. It revealed an immense stage, crowded with children, girls, and men. The wings and drops were representations of the foliage of a forest of palms. In the background was a vast gold fan, which at night unfolded and displayed Titania, Queen of the Fairies, reclining among her attendant sprites and fays.

In front, close to the wire fencing of the footlights, stood a little, mean table, covered with slips of manuscript. At the table sat the chief of the orchestra, making annotations on his score with a red chalk pencil, sometimes from the manuscripts, sometimes without reference to them. By the conductor's side stood an iron music-stand, three empty rushbottomed chairs, and a fiddle in a case.

The rehearsal had not yet begun, and the girls were collected in little knots, always breaking up and re-forming; chattering together like so many grasshoppers, and laughing perpetually, at nothing at all, and just out of the irrepressible gaiety of their hearts. At the sides of the proscenium were two sheets of looking-glass. These were a great source of attraction, and never idle for a second. Constantly, one or two of the girls would leave the rest, and, going in front of the glass, execute a few choregic gyrations quite gravely, no one taking the least notice of them, nor they of any one else. It was quaint to see them staidly pirouetting, gyrating, and posturing before these great glasses, each one totally regardless of the rest. The private practice and self-examination before a woman's most faithful confessor accomplished, the young ladies would retire to their friends, and join in the never-ending chatter. Directly they left the mirrors, their places were seized by a lot of tiny children-girls-who, in ragged dresses, mere little children of the gutter, solemnly