So time passed, oh so slowly, and although I made frequent appeals to Sam, he always looked at me indulgently, and told me to wait a bit. And every day I saw men and boys being shipped, and practising the recognised ritual, by virtue of which they were permitted to use the public-house as a house of call. This consisted of receiving from the skipper engaging them a shilling for handsel money, which coin was always spent in two pots of beer and two screws of shag, which was shared by all the waiting ones. It was of no use to me, for I neither drank beer or smoked tobacco, but although I would have been glad to take my share in coin, if only a ha'penny, that was not to be thought of. One adventure befell me about this time, which left a most vivid impression on me. Among the fellows who hung about looking to Sam for a ship would be occasionally a big boy warmly clad in coarse nautical clothing, and an indefinable air about him of being under some invisible supervision. One of these fellows became quite friendly with me, and at last in a burst of confidence informed me that he had been in prison for some minor offence, and that by the bounty of the authorities he had been clothed as I saw him, and every night a shilling was given to him for his maintenance while looking for a ship, which he was sure to get before long, because Sam had special instructions on his behalf. One night my new found friend informed me that he was going to sea the next day, and invited me to share his hospitality, with the special inducement that I should be introduced to his sweetheart. I accepted with grateful alacrity, and soon after dark I accompanied him to the purlieus of Spitalfields to a rag-and-bottle shop kept by his inamorata's father. The shop was frowsty and mildewy as these places must be, and the old man might well have served Dickens as a model for Krook, but he was very affable, and his buxom slatternly daughter was obviously much in love with my companion. At any rate a feast of fried fish and potatoes and bread were spread for us, and although our surroundings savoured of the charnel-house, and the only light was from a tallow dip in a ginger-beer bottle, I fully enjoyed my meal, not that I got enough, but the razor edge was certainly taken off my hunger. After we had eaten, the old man sent me out for a quartern of gin, which was diluted with hot water and sugar, and shared by the three--I had some drink from the tap. Then the old merchant engaged my attention with some, to me, absolutely unintelligible conversation, while his daughter and her young man, seated upon a pile of mixed coloured (rags), made ostentatious love to each other. It was all very uninteresting to me, and I was growing weary of it, when at last Jem, my friend, rose, and bidding his host and sweetheart good-night bade me follow him.