"In Portsmouth!" echoed the sailor. "Let me tell you, young man, that wherever you go all over the world, if there's a British soldier there, Miss Sarah Robinson's name will be sure to crop up. Why, don't you know that she's `The Soldiers' Friend'?" "I'm afraid I must confess to ignorance on the point--yet, stay, now you couple her name with `The Soldier's Friend,' I have got a faint remembrance of having heard it before. Have I not heard of a Miss Weston, too, in connection with a work of some sort among sailors?" "Ay, no doubt ye have. She has a grand Institoot in Portsm'uth too, but she goes in for sailors _only_--all over the kingdom--w'ereas Miss Robinson goes in for soldiers an' sailors both, though mainly for the soldiers. She set agoin' the _Sailors' Welcome_ before Miss Weston began in Portsm'uth, an' so she keeps it up, but there ain't no opposition or rivalry. Their aims is pretty much alike, an' so they keep stroke together wi' the oars. But I'll tell you more about that when you get inside. Here we are! There's the dock-gates, you see, and that's Queen Street, an' the _Welcome's_ close at hand. It's a teetotal house, you know. All Miss Robinson's Institoots is that." "Indeed! How comes it, then, that a man--excuse me--`three sheets in the wind,' can gain admittance?" "Oh! as to that, any sailor or soldier may get admittance, even if he's as drunk as a fiddler, if he on'y behaves his-self. But they won't supply drink on the premises, or allow it to be brought in--'cept inside o' you, of coorse. Cause why? you can't help that--leastwise not without the help of a stomach-pump. Plenty o' men who ain't abstainers go to sleep every night at the _Welcome_, 'cause they find the beds and other things so comfortable. In fact, some hard topers have been indooced to take the pledge in consekince o' what they've heard an' seen in this _Welcome_, though they came at first only for the readin'-room an' beds. Here, let me look at you under this here lamp. Yes. You'll do. You're something like a sea-dog already. You won't object to change hats wi' me?" "Why?" asked Miles, somewhat amused. "Never you mind that, mate. You just putt yourself under my orders if you'd sail comfortably before the wind. I'll arrange matters, an' you can square up in the morning." As Miles saw no particular reason for objecting to this fancy of his eccentric friend, he exchanged his soft cap for the sailor's straw hat, and they entered the _Welcome_ together. CHAPTER THREE. THE "SAILORS' WELCOME"--MILES HAS A NIGHT OF IT AND ENLISTS--HIS FRIEND ARMSTRONG HAS AN AGREEABLE SURPRISE AT THE SOLDIERS' INSTITUTE.