We had some more talk after this; and then he pretended to go to sleep in his corner again, and I went out. I went straight into the City and saw some of our chief people, who sent over to the Bank. They would not chance my going there, for fear of somebody seeing me that had better know nothing about it. The gents from the Bank could hardly believe their ears, and the compliments they paid me, to be sure! It was decided that everything was to be left in my hands, and I was provided with letters to the right parties at the water-side. But I need not go into any further particulars of that kind. I was not going to trouble myself any more just now about the pilfering at Byrle & Co.'s factory; as far as I was interested in it, the thieves might take boilers, wheels, chimneys, and all. I took up my post in the old arbours, and there, though the rain came steadily down, I sat. I managed to get a pretty dry corner; and with a little of the _Anchor's_ rum-and-water and my pipe, I made myself tolerably comfortable while I sat and watched the Dutch trader. I was well screened from the sight of any one below, or else my corner would not have suited; and although I could hear the steps and the voices of the people going to the ferry, and could have touched them by leaning over, yet they could not see me. The bony ferryman, in his tarpaulin coat and hat, was there this afternoon; and very sloppy and miserable all the boats looked; and as the tide fell lower and lower, the great broad bed of river-mud grew broader, and the path to the ferryboat grew longer, and still I kept my watch, and meant to keep it. I must own, however, that I did not expect to see anything worth notice, for what could there be? But sometimes, you know, in our business, it is as necessary to watch to make sure there is nothing being done, as it is to make sure that some important movement is going on. There was an oyster-smack not fifty yards from me as was left on the shingle or mud when the tide went down; and there was a man smoking his pipe on the deck of that oyster-smack, just as I was smoking mine in the arbour; and when night came, and the river got dark, and you couldn't make anything out of it but a great black space, with a hollow sound of the wind moaning over it and of the water lapping on the shore as the tide rose again--then there was a lantern burning on the deck of that smack, and there was a similar lantern burning in my arbour; but the light was shewn open on board of the smack, and mine was a dark-lantern (so was the other) with the light hid. But I was perfectly well aware that the man aboard that smack never took his eyes off me while it was light, and that after dark he watched to see if I shewed my lantern. I didn't shew it; but if I had, there would have been a Thames police galley and five armed constables alongside of that hard in a couple of minutes. AN EXTRAORDINARY PROJECT.