Yet neither was it foredoomed for me or any of the vagrant crew around to see the mountebank's treasures. For as he produced his snake, a poor huddled up little thing that looked as though it had neither life nor venom in it, we heard a shouting and bawling at the top end of the street and the screams of women; and presently saw advancing down it about fifteen sailors fighting their way along, while still the women howled at them and they endeavoured to secure all the men around them. "The Press! The Press!" called out the raree men and our crowd together, while all fled helter-skelter, leaving me the only one standing there all by myself, so that, in a moment, I was surrounded by the press-gang, for such I soon knew it to be. "Your age, name and calling," said a man to me who seemed to be the leader and was, as I later learned, the lieutenant in command. He was a poor-looking fellow very much unlike all ideas I had conceived of His Majesty's naval officers, and, unlike the officers of the army, had no uniform to wear. Therefore, since he was one of those poor creatures who are officers in the navy without money or interest and with mighty little pay, it was not strange that his clothes were shabby, his boots burst out, and his hat a thing that would not have done credit to a scarecrow, though it had a gold cockade, much tarnished, in it. "That is my affair," I retorted, "and none of yours. Pass on and leave me." For a moment he seemed astonished at my reply as did his men, but then he said: "Young man, insolence will avail you nothing. I am lieutenant of His Majesty's ship _Namur_, on shore for the purpose of impressment, and you must go with me unless either you have a protection ticket, are under eighteen, or are a Thames waterman belonging to an insurance company." "I am neither of these things and have no ticket," I replied; "yet I warn you touch me not. I am the Viscount St. Amande and future Marquis of Amesbury, and if you assault me it shall go hard with you." "Shall it?" he replied, though he seemed staggered for a moment. "We will see. And for your viscounts and marquises, well! this is not the part of the town for such goods. However, lord or no lord, you must come with me, and, if you are one, doubtless you can explain all to the Admiral. I must do my duty." Then, turning to his followers, he cried, "Seize upon him."