"Ho, business failed," roars Joe. "Pastry-cook I was. Came down--_smash_! Lost everythin'. Every penny! Ho! Ho! But what's odds? Happy and jolly! Nothin' wrong. I'm a'right. What's odds?" "Your old missus is dead, ain't she, Joe?" shouts Mr. Wells. "Ess," answers Joe cheerfully. "Gone. Dead." He points towards the floor with a twitching finger, and stabs downward. "Dead. Years ago. Gone." "And what about your boy?" asks Mr. Wells. "No good," roars Joe, in half a rage. "He's no good. No good 't all. Brought him up like genneman. No good." He laughs again, shakes himself in his chair, and strikes another match. "He was selling things in the street when the clergyman found him," says Mr. Wells behind his pipe. "Had a little tray strapped on to his shoulders, and two sticks to keep him standing. Collar-studs, tie-clips, bootlaces, matches--you know. You've often seen trays like that, I dare say. Well, that was what Joe was doing when the clergyman found him. Not this clergyman, you understand. The one before, Father Vivian. He's now a bishop. Out somewhere in Africa. That's his photograph on the wall over there. He sent us a picture-postcard the other day. Little black woolly-headed baby with no clothes on! I haven't seen it myself, because my eyes are bad; but they all laugh at it, and I dare say it's funny enough. A nice man Father Vivian was. A genneman. He's a bishop now, but he don't forget his old friends, do he?" * * * * * And as we listen to the blind man we wonder what his story is, and we learn that he was born in Trinity Lane, Upper Thames Street, in the days when poor people did live on that side of the water, and that he was engaged at an early age in tide work. "Coal trade," he says, quietly. "Seaham to London. The _Isabella_ brig. Four or five years I had of that. Then I was off to Russia in the _Prince George_. Then I did the trade between England and America. Then I was on a brig working the west coast of Africa. After that I came home and married. My wife lived in Fivefoot Lane. Her father was a carpenter. She was a good woman. She's dead now. We buried a sight of little 'uns. I can't tell you how many. There was a son, Harry: we buried him; a girl, 'Liza: we buried her; and a boy, Frank: we buried him; but I can't tell you how many little 'uns. Buried a lot, we did. Three children living now. Doing fair, they are; pretty fair. As times go, you know. I dare say they're happy enough."