"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Mr. Bethnal, who looked as if experiencing a novel sensation--he evidently had an idea. "I tell you what--we'll go and blow a cloud with Joe, the pigeon-fancier. He lives only a short distance off, not far from the abbey; I want to see him on business, so we shall kill two birds. He's one of us, you know." I now learned that Mr. Bethnal was a new acquaintance, picked up under circumstances (as a member of Parliament, to whom I once belonged, used to say in the House) to which it is unnecessary further to allude. "I was glad to hear of your luck, by-the-by," said the gentleman in question, not noticing his companion's wish to avoid the subject. "I heard of it from Old Blinks. Smashing's the thing, if one's a presentable cove. You'd do deuced well in it. You've only to get nobby togs and you'll do." Mr. Joe, it appeared, in addition to his ornithological occupations, kept a small shop for the sale of coals and potatoes; he was also, in a very small way, a timber merchant; for several bundles of firewood were piled in pyramids in his shed. Mr. Bethnal's business with him was soon dispatched; although not until after the latter had been assured by his friend, that Edward was "of the right sort," with the qualification that he was "rather green at present;" and he was taken into Mr. Joe's confidence, and also into Mr. Joe's up-stairs sanctum. In answer to a request from Mr. Bethnal, in a jargon to me then unintelligible, Mr. Joe produced from some mysterious depository at the top of the house, a heavy canvas bag, which he emptied on the table, discovering a heap of shillings and half-crowns, which, by a sympathetic instinct, I immediately detected to be of my own species. "What do you think of these?" said Mr. Bethnal to his young friend. Edward expressed some astonishment that Mr. Joe should be in the line. "Why, bless your eyes," said that gentleman, "you don't suppose I gets my livelihood out of the shed down stairs, nor the pigeons neither. You see, these things are only dodges. If I lived here like a gentleman--that is to say, without a occupation--the p'lese would soon be down upon me. They'd be obleeged to take notice on me. As it is, I comes the respectable tradesman, who's above suspicion--and the pigeons helps on the business wonderful." "How is that?" "Why, I keeps my materials--the pewter, and all that--on the roof, in order to be out o' the way, in case of a surprise. If I was often seed upon the roof, a-looking after such-like matters, inquisitive eyes would be on the look out. The pigeons is a capital blind. I'm believed to be devoted to my pigeons, out o' which I takes care it should be thought I makes a little fortun--and that makes a man respected. As for the pigeon and coal and 'tatur business, them's dodges. Gives a opportoonity of bringing in queer-looking sackfuls o' things, which otherwise would compel the _'spots'_--as we calls the p'lese--to come down on us."