I gripped my grandfather's hand tighter, and asked, in all innocence, if we should see any, if we kept watch out of window that night. He laughed, thought the chance scarce worth a sleepless night, and went on to tell me of something else. But I overheard later in a bar conversation a ghastly tale of years before; of a murdered man's body that had been dragged dripping through the streets at night by two men who supported its arms, staggering and shouting and singing, as though the three were merely drunk; and how it was dropped in panic ere it was brought to the waterside, because of a collision with three live sailors who really were drunk. One or two crimps' carts came through from the docks as we walked, drawn by sorry animals, and piled high with shouting sailors and their belongings--chief among these the giant bolster-bags. The victims went to their fate gloriously enough, hailing and chaffing the populace on the way, and singing, each man as he list. Also we saw a shop with a window full of parrots and monkeys; and a very sick kangaroo in a wooden cage being carried in from a van. And so we came to the London Dock at last. And there, in the sugar-sheds, stood more sugar than ever I had dreamed of in my wildest visions--thousands of barrels, mountains of sacks. And so many of the bags were rat-bitten, or had got a slit by accidentally running up against a jack-knife; and so many of the barrels were defective, or had stove themselves by perverse complications with a crowbar; that the heavy, brown, moist stuff was lying in heaps and lumps everywhere; and I supposed that it must be called "foot-sugar" because you couldn't help treading on it. It was while I was absorbed in this delectable spectacle, that I heard a strained little voice behind me, and turned to behold Mr. Cripps greeting my grandfather. "Good mornin', Cap'en Kemp, sir," said Mr. Cripps. "I been a-lookin' at the noo Blue Crosser--the _Emily Riggs_. She ought to be done, ye know, an' a han'some picter she'd make; but the skipper seems busy. Why, an' there's young master Stephen, I do declare; 'ow are ye, sir?" As he bent and the nose neared, I was seized with a horrid fear that he was going to kiss me. But he only shook hands, after all--though it was not at all a clean hand that he gave. "Why, Cap'en Kemp," he went on, "this is what I say a phenomenal coincidence; rather unique, in fact. Why, you'll 'ardly believe as I was a thinkin' o' you not 'arf an hour ago, scarcely! Now you wouldn't 'a' thought that, would ye?" There was a twinkle in Grandfather Nat's eye. "All depends," he said. "Comin' along from the mortuary, I see somethink----" "Ah, something in the mortuary, no doubt," my grandfather interrupted, quizzically. "Well, what was in the mortuary? I bet there was a corpse in the mortuary." "Quite correct, Cap'en Kemp, so there was; three of 'em, an' a very sad sight; decimated, Cap'en Kemp, by the watery element. But it wasn't them I was----"