Next morning when I woke, wet and shivering, the dull light through the skylight showed me as the poor fellow lay on the other side, and there was no one else in the cabin. Close aside him was a life-belt; so I knew that he had been one of the lifeboat crew, and, not wanting to disturb him, I was going to creep out, when I thought I'd have a look to see who it was I'd saved, and so I crept back a bit, and stooped down, when my heart seemed to stop, for I saw as it was my own brother--and he was dead! Can't help feeling a bit soft about it, sir, though it's years ago now. Poor chap! he volunteered, as the crew were short-handed, and was one of the many lost, for only two or three got ashore. Plucky young chap, he was; but the sea was too much for him; and, Lord, sir, you'd be surprised how many the sea takes every year. CHAPTER THREE. K9--A QUEER DOG. Ideas for new sketches are like mushrooms in the London fields--scarce articles, and difficult to find unless you force them in a bed. But then the forced article will not bear comparison with that of spontaneous growth, while you find that, as you have made your bed, so on it you must lie. So you lie, on the strength of your forced article, and the natural consequence is that the public will not believe you when you tell them a story. We have had specimens lately of what the earnest will dare in search of the novel, but in spite of Longfellow's imperative words, we can't all be heroes. Be that as it may, though, after a long search, I found this mental mushroom in the field of adventure. It was nearly hidden by the surrounding growth, but peeped forth white and shiny like a bald-crowned head, with the side crop brushed carefully across in streaks. It was a reverse of circumstances certainly, but the idea was new, so I took a policeman into custody; while as a proof of the daring contained in the apparently simple act, think of a man to whom reputation is dear, and read the following. I had long had my eye upon the policeman, for no one could gaze upon his face without feeling that those impressive features had a large fund of interesting matter concealed behind. "There must be something more than whiskers," I said, and then I considered what a sensation novelist he would make if but of a literary bent. Truth is stranger than fiction; and what truths we should get from the man so often sworn to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." However, failing the policeman's turning _litterateur_, I thought a little of his experience might be made available, and therefore the above-named custodian act was performed.