“What dreary little streets are those that lead from the Strand towards the Thames! Pinched, frail, semi-genteel, and many-lodgered are the houses, mysteriously indicative of a variously occupied population, and painfully suggesting, by the surging conflict of busy life at one end, and the dark flowing river at the other, an existence maintained between struggle and suicide.” This, most valued reader, if no reflection of mine, but was the thought that occupied the mind of one who, in not the very best of humors, and of a wet and dreary night, knocked, in succession, at half the doors in the street in search after an acquaintance. “Yes, sir, the second back,” said a sleepy maid-servant at last; “he is just come in.” “All right,” said the stranger. “Take that carpet-bag and writing-desk upstairs to his room, and say that Captain Davis is coming after them.'” “You owe me a tip, Captain,” said the cabman, catching the name as he was about to mount his box. “Do you remember the morning I drove you down to Blackwall to catch the Antwerp boat, I went over Mr. Moss, the sheriff's officer, and smashed his ankle, and may I never taste bitters again if I got a farthing for it.” “I remember,” said Davis, curtly. “Here's a crown. I 'd have made it a sovereign if it had been his neck you 'd gone over.” “Better luck next time, sir, and thank you,” said the man, as he drove away. The maid was yet knocking for admission when Grog arrived at the door. “Captain Fisk, sir,--Captain Fisk, there 's a gent as says--” “That will do,” said Davis, taking the key from her hand and opening the door for himself. “Old Grog himself, as I'm a living man!” cried a tall, much whiskered and moustached fellow, who was reading a “Bell's Life” at the fire. “Ay, Master Fisk,--no other,” said Davis, as he shook his friend cordially by the hand. “I 've had precious work to find you out I was up at Duke Street, then they sent me to the Adelphi; after that I tried Ling's, in the Hay-market, and it was a waiter there--” “Joe,” broke in the other. “Exactly. Joe told me that I might chance upon you here.” “Well, I 'm glad to see you, old fellow, and have a chat about long ago,” said Fisk, as he placed a square green bottle and some glasses on the table. How well you 're looking, too; not an hour older than when I saw you four years ago!” “Ain't I, though!” muttered Grog. “Ay, and like the racers, I 've got weight for age, besides. I'm a stone and a half heavier than I ought to be, and there's nothing worse than that to a fellow that wants to work with his head and sleep with one eye open.” “You can't complain much on that score, Kit; you never made so grand a stroke in your life as that last one,--the marriage, I mean.” “It was n't bad,” said Davis, as he mixed his liquor; “nor was it, exactly, the kind of hazard that every man could make. Beecher was a troublesome one,--a rare troublesome one; nobody could ever say when he 'd run straight.”