After all these years of seafaring Mr. Wells worked on Brewer's Quay for eleven years, and after that took a spell of work in City warehouses. He "entered the Fur Trade." He did good work and earned good money; but after a bit he got what he describes as "a bit of a blight" in the eyes. He went to Moorfields hospital and underwent an operation. The darkness didn't lift. The twilight in which he lived deepened. He had to give up respectable work, and took to selling toys in the street. Then, one day, he was knocked down by a cab, and was carried to hospital, where by good fortune he fell in with Father Vivian. Father Vivian--whose name is blessed to this day in I know not how many slum homes--happened to want a companion for Joe, and Mr. Wells was pressed into the service. The blind man came to take care of the paralytic, and here they now are in the little two-roomed slum cottage, smoking their pipes in the blackened kitchen, and declaring that they have never been so well off in their lives before. His Majesty the King has no more loyal and affectionate subjects. A friend of mine carried the two old gentlemen off to a Coronation dinner. They had a hundred things to complain of concerning the way in which the plates were whisked off before they had even got the savour of the dish in their nostrils; but when it came to singing "God save the King" they roared and cheered and shouted and cheered again, and cried till the tears ran down their faces. And now, among their possessions, there is nothing of which they are more proud than the gorgeous card telling how the King and Queen of England requested the favour of their society to a banquet. It is splendid to see these two old sea-dogs in their kitchen fingering that card and smiling over it with a pride not to be matched in all the world outside. * * * * * I have never heard them complain. They are old friends of mine. I have smoked many a pipe in their kitchen; but never yet did I hear murmur or complaint from their lips. Never once. They are most beautifully happy. They are radiant in their happiness. I do not believe there is a room in the world in which laughter is more constant and more spontaneous than in the little low-roofed black kitchen where the paralytic old pirate and the blind old seaman smoke their pipes and chuckle over the things they have done, the sights they have seen, and the storms they have weathered. Opposite to the two old gentlemen lives a great friend of theirs, a maker of rag-dolls--a grey-headed, bent-back old veteran named Mr. Kight. I happened to be calling on the two old gentlemen on the Fifth of November last year, and, entering the kitchen, and while shaking hands with Joe (who always roars with laughter when he clutches your hand, and shakes it backwards and forwards as if he meant never to let it go) little Mr. Wells came fumbling to my side, laughing and chuckling, evidently with important news.