Billy was like many another man of his class: he had no inclination to reach a higher level, or lacked the ability to go higher; and by these well developed attributes, in him, he found it pretty hard picking among the dispensers of jobs. It appears that he was continually in ill-luck, when it came to making assignments for the long line of men in waiting. Sometimes he would put in a day or so of work, with a disposition to be light-hearted over his luck; but it very often happened that when he was wanted, he was under the influence of drink; or had just recovered himself from a baptism in the river; and so he was many times overlooked. This vicarious situation did not tend to better his condition. It only made him worse. What between his few spells of work, and his numerous spells of sprees, he had a petty sum left on which to keep his growing family. Billy Barton was a very clever man in his sober moments; but so seldom was he ever in that state of good behavior, that his cleverness was overlooked even by his most intimates. What is hereof meant by this use of the word clever, is that it was applied to him in the vernacular sense, and not in its strict usage. So when in that state of temporary sanity, he was ever ready with a rough wit of the hang-dog style--the wit of the waterfront, of the grog shop, of the slums, of the rough-and-ready characters of his calling; and this he carried to his home, very often to his sorrow. He used to tell the "boys" that he had an "old woman" who could give any one spades in cards in her fetching ways toward general cussedness. But Billy would condone all that poor woman's incapacities, whenever he would get drunk, and, with a great display of imaginary wealth, which he said he would fall heir to some day, impress upon her impressionable mind the beauties of their future. Thus by such tactics, he, for a number of years, kept her hopefully on the high wave of anticipation and expectation. This trait of Billy's was one of his redeeming qualities, if he ever had any other; so much so that ere he had reached his present age of discretion, he began really to believe that he was as rich as the man in the mansion on the hill; which mansion he always kept a weather's eye out for, no difference how much smoke or fog clouded his sense of perception.