The direction in which Mr. Milsom betook himself, after he passed the border-land of waste ground and newly-built houses which separates London from the country, was the direction of Ratcliff Highway. He walked rapidly through the crowded streets, in which the crowd grew thicker as he approached the regions of the Tower. But rapidly as he walked, the steps of Time were faster. It had been bright noon when he entered the quiet little town of Barnet. It was night when he first heard the scraping fiddles and stamping feet of Ratcliff Highway. He went straight to the 'Jolly Tar'. Here all was unchanged. There were the flaring tallow candles, set in a tin hoop that hung from the low ceiling, dropping hot grease ever and anon on the loungers at the bar. There was the music--the same Scotch reels and Irish jigs, played on squeaking fiddles, which were made more inharmonious by the accompaniment of shrill Pandean pipes. There was the same crowd of sailors and bare-headed, bare-armed, loud-voiced women assembled in the stifling bar, the same cloud of tobacco-smoke, the same Babel of voices to be heard from the concert-room within; while now and then, amongst the shouts and the laughter, the oaths and the riot, there sounded the tinkling of the old piano, and the feeble upper notes of a very poor soprano voice. Black Milsom had drawn his hat over his eyes before entering the "Jolly Tar." The bar of that tavern was sunk considerably below the level of the street, and standing on the uppermost of the steps by which Mr. Wayman's customers descended to his hospitable abode, Black Milsom was able to look across the heads of the crowd to the face of the landlord busy behind his bar. In that elevated position Black Milsom waited until Dennis Wayman happened to look up and perceive the stranger on the threshold. As he did so, Thomas Milsom drew the back of his hand rapidly across his mouth, with a gesture that was evidently intended as a signal. The signal was answered by a nod from Wayman, and then Black Milsom descended the three steps, and pushed his way to the bar. "Can I have a bed, mate, and a bit of supper?" he asked, in a voice that was carefully disguised. "Ay, ay, to be sure you can," answered Wayman; "you can have everything that is comfortable and friendly by paying for it. This house is one of the most hospitable places there is--to those that can pay the reckoning." This rather clumsy joke was received with an applauding guffaw by the sailors and women next the bar. "If you'll step through that door yonder, you'll find a snug little room, mate," said Dennis Wayman, in the tone which he might have used in speaking to a stranger; "I'll send you a steak and a potato as soon as they can be cooked." Thomas Milsom nodded. He pushed open the rough wooden door which was so familiar to him, and went into the dingy little den which, in the 'Jolly Tar', was known as the private parlour.