The boy complied, and putting a few reserve charges in his pocket, looked up at him shrewdly. “Is it very partikler?” he enquired, softly. “_Partikler!_” repeated Joe. “I should think it is. He can’t think ’ow partikler it is, can ’e, Will-yum?” Mr. Green shook his head. “It’s worth more than a tanner then,” said Tommy, briskly. “Look ’ere,” said Joe, suppressing his natural instincts by a strong effort. “You keep quiet for three days, and I’ll be a friend to you for life. And so will Will-yum, won’t you, old man?” Mr. Green, with a smile of rare condescension, said that he would. “Look ’ere,” said the bargainer, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you: you gimme another tanner each instead, and that’s letting you off cheap, ’cos your friendship ’ud be worth pounds and pounds to anybody what wanted it.” He gazed firmly at his speechless, would-be friends and waited patiently until such time as their emotion would permit of a reply. Joe was the first to speak, and Tommy listened unmoved to a description of himself which would have made a jelly-fish blush. “Tanner each,” he said, simply; “I don’t want friends who can talk like that to save sixpence.” Mr. Green, with a sarcasm which neither Tommy nor Joe understood, gave him the amount in coppers. His friend followed suit, and the boy, having parted with his reputation at a fair price, went below, whistling. Fraser came on board soon afterwards, and Mr. Green, with his celebrated drunken scene fresh in his mind, waited nervously for developments. None ensuing, he confided to Joe his firm conviction that Miss Tyrell was a young lady worth dying for, and gloomily wondered whether Fraser was good enough for her. After which, both men, somewhat elated, fell to comparing head-pieces. Joe was in a state of nervous tension while steam was getting up, and, glued to the side of the steamer, strained his eyes, gazing at the dimly-lit stairs. As they steamed rapidly down the river his spirits rose, and he said vaguely that something inside him seemed to tell him that his trouble would not be in vain. “There’s two days yet,” said Mr. Green. “I wish they was well over.” Captain Flower, who had secured a bed at the Three Sisters’ Hotel in Aldgate, was for widely different reasons wishing the same thing. His idea was to waylay Fraser immediately after the marriage and obtain Poppy’s address, his natural vanity leading him to believe that Miss Tipping would at once insist upon a change of bridegroom, if she heard of his safety before the ceremony was performed. In these circumstances, he had to control his impatience as best he could, and with a view to preventing his safety becoming known too soon, postponed writing to his uncle until the day before the wedding. CHAPTER XXIV.