And stop I did, sir, a talkin' to the poor woman, an' I told her all about the loaf, and made her sob and cry to hear where her husband was. But she brightened up when I told her as he'd had a good feed and was well wrapped up; and how baker wouldn't prosecute, I was sure. And then back comes baker, and his wife with him, and they'd got a couple o' blankets and a rug, and at last, sir, there was such goin's on that I'm blest if I warn't obliged to go out on the landin', for the poor woman wanted to kiss me; and if I'd ha' stayed in the room a minute longer I knows I should have disgraced the force by acting like a soft. Soon afterwards baker and his wife comes out, and we all goes off, but not till it was settled that I was to go and have dinner with 'em on the next Sunday, which I did, and I'm blowed--which I hope you'll excuse, sir--if I knew Mr Graham, which was the poor fellow I took, for baker had rigged him out, and got him a place to go to; and since then I've often seen--Well, if it ain't half-past ten, sir, and--Not a drop more, thank ye, or I shall have the key of the street. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. A WEIRD PLACE. Wondering whether Molly told the truth when she declared that she had never been false since the last parting at Wapping Old Stairs, and forming our own opinion upon the matter in a way decidedly unfavourable towards the trowsers washing, grog-making lady, in consequence of comparisons made with the feline damsels lurking at the corners of the courts, I came to an open door. Then without pausing to think that comparisons are odious, I confronted a pluffy-looking old gentleman busily engaged in building leaning Towers of Pisa with the bronze coinage of our realm. He was a gentleman of a subdued jovial expression of countenance, evidently not overburdened with toil, from the jaunty way in which he shifted from his left to his right foot, took my penny and allowed the turnstile to give its "click, click;" when passing through a pair of swing doors, I stood in a sort of dirty-looking whispering gallery, gazing down upon what appeared to be a sham chalet, minus the stones upon the roof. Right, left, and in front were painted views of sea-ports and landscapes, all looking like the dark half of that portrait exhibited by the gentleman who cleans and restores paintings; while assailing the nostrils was a peculiar odour something like the essence of stale theatre bottled and buried for many years in a damp cellar. But there were stairs innumerable to descend before I could enter the famed tunnel of the Thames; and then, after a rat like progress, re-appear in Rotherhithe.