We were hungry enough by this time to eat anything; but it was no use piping to breakfast, for we had no food; and even had we caught some more fish, they were no use without a fire, and all attempts to create even a spark had been in vain. So we sauntered about the beach or tried to penetrate the jungle; in the latter case getting well bitten for our pains by the red ants, till our eyes were gladdened by the sight of two boats pulling in our direction from the ship. This was lucky, for we had just decided on risking the passage in the cutter. It was a long time before the boats could reach us, for they too had a difficulty in finding the channel; but at last they pulled into the river and landed with some provisions. Oh, how enjoyable was that glass of rum! How precious the matches wherewith to rekindle the beloved baccy! Even the raw pork was pleasant enough to our hungry stomachs. But after we had lit our pipes, we forgot all our troubles, and expressed our willingness to remain another night and have some more fun. It was not to be, however. Our relief brought us orders to return aboard immediately; and in another hour we found ourselves alongside the ship, receiving the congratulations and chaff of our shipmates, and after all none the worse for our seining-party. HELENA, LADY HARROGATE. CHAPTER XVII.—AT OLD PLUGGER’S. London boarding-houses being regulated by no statute law, and as little liable to the supervision of the police and the interference of the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Home Department as are other free commercial concerns, are very much harder to classify than are London hotels, inns, and public-houses. Their very exterior, which is decorated by no gaudy signs or gold-lettered inscriptions relative to viands, neat wines or cordials, might cause them to be mistaken for schools, workshops, or private dwellings. Even when a brass plate on the door bears the name of Bloss or Grewer or Pawkins—people who keep boarding-houses do appear, for some inscrutable reason, to parade the oddest patronymics—nobody not enlightened enough to know who Pawkins, Bloss, or Grewer may be, would gather much information from the laconic announcement. In all London there was not, taking one place with another, a much queerer boarding-house than one which stood on the Southwark or Surrey side of the Thames, and so nearly opposite to the Tower that the gaunt turrets of the grim old fortress were always (save in a fog of peculiar density) visible from its upper windows. This boarding-house, at the corner of what was called Dampier’s Row, was very solidly built, chiefly as it would seem, of the massive timbers of ships dissected in the breakers’ yards close by; and with its bow-windows and bulging outline, seemed to stand hard by the water’s edge, like some sturdy collier craft that had accidentally got stranded and was trying to accustom itself to life ashore. This particular