Several days passed—days of unfailing happiness for Harry. Though he spent hours in roaming the town, there was always something fresh to see, something novel to capture his interest. He saw the state entrance of the new Venetian ambassador. He visited the Tower, the Abbey, and St. Paul’s, saw Winstanley’s water-works in Piccadilly near Hyde Park, and witnessed a football match at Covent Garden. He accompanied Fanshawe several times to the theatre, and somewhat offended that sparkish young gentleman by constantly refusing to join him in card-parties and night escapades in the streets. He saw a back-sword match at the Bear Garden in Hockley in the Hole, and a billiard match at the Greyhound Coffee-house near Monmouth Street. Apart from these public sights, he found endless diversion in the ordinary street scenes: the markets, the itinerant vendors, the acrobats, or posture-masters as they were then called, who performed their dancing and tumbling in squares remote from the traffic. It amused Harry that Sherebiah never tired of these mountebank tricks, but would stand and watch them with unflagging interest by the hour, applauding every neatly executed feat, and criticising with unsparing severity every instance of clumsiness or bungling. Soldiers, on the other hand, apparently did not interest Sherebiah. Harry liked to watch them drilling on the Horse Guards’ parade or in Hyde Park; but on these occasions Sherebiah always strolled away, waiting with impatience until his young master had satisfied his curiosity. "They won’t kill you, Sherry," said Harry once, laughing as the man sheered off. "Their muskets are not loaded." "True. But ’tis no pleasure to me to see such men o’ war. Feyther o’ mine were a trooper; he be always talken on it; I be a man o’ peace, I be." Every day when he came down to breakfast, and when he returned in the evening, Harry eagerly looked for a message from Lord Marlborough. But the days passed; a week flew by; and still no message came. After the second day he made no reference to the matter; Sherebiah and Grootz considerately forbore to allude to it. But they watched him with shrewd eyes, and saw, through all the curiosity and pleasure he took in his new life, a growing sense of disappointment and anxiety. He had built high hopes upon the interview at Godolphin’s; as boys will, he had allowed his fancy to outstrip his judgment, and had added a good deal of embroidery to the simple facts. Already in imagination he saw himself carrying the Queen’s colours, performing heroic deeds in the field, winning golden opinions from the general, coming home laden with honour and substantial rewards, perhaps to gain, as the acme of bliss, an approving smile from the Queen herself. And he would wake from these day-dreams to the sober reality—-that the desired message from Marlborough had not come, and meanwhile time was fleeting by, and every day saw his little stock of money diminished.