That night, thinking matters over in bed, Frank determined to go down to the docks and see if he could get a place as cabin boy. He had had this idea in his mind ever since he lost his money, and had only put it aside in order that he might, if possible, get some berth on shore which might seem likely in the end to afford him a means of making his way up again. It was not that he was afraid of the roughness of a cabin boy's life; it was only because he knew that it would be so very long before, working his way up from boy to able bodied seaman, he could obtain a mate's certificate, and so make a first step up the ladder. However, he thought that even this would be better than going as a wagoner's boy, and he accordingly crossed London Bridge, turned down Eastcheap, and presently found himself in Ratcliff Highway. He was amused here at the nautical character of the shops, and presently found himself staring into a window full of foreign birds, for the most part alive in cages, among which, however, were a few cases of stuffed birds. “How stupid I have been!” he thought to himself. “I wonder I never thought of it before! I can stuff birds and beasts at any rate a deal better than those wooden looking things. I might have a chance of getting work at some naturalist's shop. I will get a directory and take down all the addresses in London, and then go around.” He now became conscious of a conversation going on between a little old man with a pair of thick horn rimmed spectacles and a sailor who had a dead parrot and a cat in his hand. “I really cannot undertake them,” the old man said. “Since the death of my daughter I have had but little time to attend to that branch. What with buying and selling, and feeding and attending to the live ones, I have no time for stuffing. Besides, if the things were poisoned, they would not be worth stuffing.” “It isn't the question of worth, skipper,” the sailor said; “and I don't say, mind ye, that these here critturs was pisoned, only if you looks at it that this was the noisiest bird and the worst tempered thievingest cat in the neighborhood--though, Lord bless you, my missus wouldn't allow it for worlds--why, you know, when they were both found stiff and cold this morning people does have a sort of a suspicion as how they've been pisoned;” and he winked one eye in a portentous manner, and grinned hugely. “The missus she's in a nice taking, screeching, and yelling as you might hear her two cables' length away, and she turns round on me and will have it as I'd a hand in the matter. Well, just to show my innocence, I offers to get a glass case for 'em and have 'em stuffed, if it cost me a couple of pounds. I wouldn't care if they fell all to pieces a week afterwards, so that it pacified the old woman just at present. If I can't get 'em done I shall ship at once, for the place will be too hot to hold me. So you can't do it nohow?”