"Well, Steve saved my life agin the same night. We were pretty near the mouth of the sewer on the Thames, near Wapping, where we had a boat to take us off, for in those times the peelers never meddled with us like they does now. "Well, there was one place very ticklish in the sewer, that Steve had cautioned me about, and this place was all broken and in holes, and it was chuck full of rats. When we came by I was foolish enough to turn the light of my lantern on the broken place in the sewer, and sure enough, there was a reglar colony o' rats in a room--keeping house,--about two thousand of them--with a hall-way and a room gnawed out of the bricks, as large as the room I live in at home. There they were, all stuck together, with their eyes a glarin at me like winkin, and they all in a heap as big as a horse and cart. I never seed such a sight in my life. Steve told me to come on, and I was going, for the rats never said a word all the time, but looked at me and squealed--but just as I was turning around after Steve my foot slipped and I fell, and the lantern dropped into a pool and went out. "I must have frightened the rats, for there was an awful squealing and scampering--but they didn't all run away, for I found a hundred of them fastened on my hands, legs, face, and body, when I fell. You may be sure I hollowed and yelled, for I wasn't used to these vermin then, and the more I hollowed and beat them, the more they squealed and bit me. "In a few minutes Steve came running back with his lantern, and seeing I was down and couldn't get up, he drove at them with his pole and killed half a dozen of them, and then they left me and jumped at him. Then we went at it for a couple of minutes, battling for our lives, and when we did beat them off we were bitten all over our bodies. I am sure if it warnt for Steve and his lantern that time, I should have been eaten up by the rats. You see, Sir, they thought when I stumbled and fell that I attacked them, for I found out since that they never begin first if they can help it." [Illustration] CHAPTER XXII. BACCHUS AND BEER. IT is an undeniable fact, that the English are the greatest beer-drinking people in the world. The assertion may be disputed in favor of the Germans (and their beverage, lager bier,) but who can compare the thin resinous beer of Munich and Vienna with the heavy bodied, soporific, and sinewy London pale ale, Edinburgh ale, or Guiness Brown Stout, that has ever drank the latter malt liquors. To believe in his native beer is a necessary part of the Englishman's religion, and it is with the proverbial Briton a trite saying, when an exile at Chicago, New Orleans, New York, Madrid, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, or Calcutta, "You cawnt get a glass of hale in this blessed country--you knaw. You hawvent got the 'ops you knaw, and ye cawnt make it ye knaw."