"I saw there were three men in her," the officer replied, "but I couldn't see their faces or the colour of their clothes, for it was very dark; and if it had not been for the two great lamps at the jeweller's on the bridge, I should not have seen so much as I did. We are going home now, for we have not light to see; but we got up one of the bodies, drifted down nearly half a mile on the Southwark side there." "Was it a man or a woman?" demanded Wilton, eagerly. "A man, sir," replied the officer. "It turns out to be Jones, the waterman by Fulham." Wilton did not speak for a moment, and the Messenger was struck, and silent likewise. When they recovered a little, however, they explained to the officer briefly the object of their search upon the river, and he was easily induced to continue dragging at the spot where he thought the boat had disappeared. He was unsuccessful, however; and, after labouring for about half an hour, the total failure of light compelled them to desist without any farther discovery. Wilton then landed with the Messenger; and with his brain feeling as if on fire, and a heart wrung with grief, he rode back, as soon as horses could be procured, to carry the sad tidings which he had obtained to Laura's father. CHAPTER XX. A spirit--though rather of a better kind than that which drags too many of our unfortunate countrymen into the abodes of wickedness and corruption, now called Gin Pal--es, so liberally provided for them in the metropolis--abodes licensed and patronised by the government for the temptation of the lower orders of the populace to commit and harden themselves in the great besetting vice of this country--a spirit, I say, of a better kind than this, drags me into a house of public entertainment, called the Nag's Head, in St. James's Street. The Nag's Head, in St. James's Street!!! Now, though nobody would be in the least surprised to have read or heard of the Nag's Head in the Borough, yet there is probably not a single reader who will see this collocation of the "Nag's Head" with "St. James's Street" without an exclamation, or at least a feeling of surprise, at it being possible there should ever have been such a thing in St. James's Street at all--that is to say, not a nag's head, either horsically or hobbyhorsically speaking, but tavernistically; for be it known to all men, that the Nag's Head here mentioned was an inn or tavern actually in the very middle of the royal and fashionable street called St. James's. One might write a whole chapter upon the variations and mutations of the names of inns, and inquire curiously whether their modification in various places and at various times depends merely upon fashion, or whether it is produced by some really existing but latent sympathy between peculiar names, as applied to inns, and particular circumstances, affecting localities, times, seasons, and national character.