In the first place, as he said to himself, he had not only been detected travelling without a ticket, and without money; but, what he felt was equally suspicious, without so much as a box, bag, or parcel among the whole half-dozen members of his family. If he accounted for the possession of the counterfeit coin and notes by declaring that he had been imposed upon, still, how was he satisfactorily to explain to any unprejudiced mind that combination of mischances that had deprived him of his luggage? Then, supposing, he went on arguing with himself, he could sufficiently prove his innocence to the authorities, to induce them to abandon the charge against him, what was to become of him?—in a strange town, without a friend, without a shilling—or without a change of linen for himself or any of the miserable members of the wretched family that looked up to him for protection. If he escaped the prison, there was nothing that he could see left for him but the workhouse; and, unsophisticated as he was, still he was man of the world enough to know that the workhouse was much the worse of the two. “Waistomea! Waistomea!” he inwardly ejaculated, as he thought of his many troubles. To enliven the terrors of his position, Mrs. Sandboys obliged him, on the road to the Police-office, by now sketching an imaginary picture of the whole family at work on the treadmill, and now painting in the darkest colours portraits of herself, Elcy, and Ann Lightfoot in the female ward of the union, picking oakum, and Cursty, Jobby, and deaf Postlethwaite, in the yard of the same wretched establishment, engaged in the gentlemanly occupation of cracking stones. The only hope, she gave him to understand very plainly, that she could see for them was, to get the parish to pass them to their own county; and then, in the depths of her misery, she wished to “guidness” they had remained contented at Buttermere, and never made up their minds to enjoy themselves. But no sooner had the entire six been crammed into the dock at the Police-office, and the Inspector cast his eyes towards the chief prisoner, than, suddenly recognising him as a fellow-countryman, he asked him whether he remembered one Johnny Wren, who had left Buttermere some ten years before, and “listed” in the Life Guards. This was a piece of good fortune which Mr. Sandboys, seeing how uncivilly the fates had lately treated him, was in no way prepared for; however, Johnny soon removed his fellow-countryman from the dock to a seat by his side; and when he had listened to the series of misadventures that had befallen his old friend, he begged of him not to worry himself any further about his troubles, as he had a few pounds by him, and should be most happy to place the money at his service.