"You will not like the East End of London," said Hardy. "I don't know why sailors should make the places they live in dirty, yet it is true that after leaving Whitechapel the closer you draw to the docks, the grimier life looks. Jack has spent his money, you see, and is going away tipsy and ragged, and what he leaves behind him is anything but sweet, and they serve him as though he were a Yahoo. Look at his lodging-house and his boarding-house, at the dens in which he revolves to the ghastly notes of a black fiddler, with objects fit only to be lectured upon, or for the show of a Barnum. Take his line of railway, the Blackwall line; the farmers wouldn't send their swine to market in the carriages, and so the sailor travels in them." "How long have you been at sea, Mr. Hardy?" "I went to sea when I was fourteen years old, and I am now twenty-six." "In twelve years you have become a mate?" "Chief mate," he said. "Oh," she exclaimed, "what would I give if you carried a stewardess, and your captain would consent to take me!" "I wish it could be contrived," said he, in his plain, straight way, "but owners never ship people they don't want. Even if I had influence, an objection would be raised that you were the only woman on board." "But I have read," she exclaimed, "that a captain takes his wife to sea, and she may be the only woman in the ship." "Ay, but she's the captain's wife," he answered, with a smile, "and if she were a shipload of females she couldn't be more." They then began to talk of London and the East End, of a convenient part to take a lodging in, how it was certain that she must obtain a berth somewhere or somehow before Hardy sailed; and whilst they conversed the door opened, and Bax entered, purple with exercise and beer. "Well," said he, breathing comfortably, as though he had refreshed himself before entering with rest and ale, "that was a fine trick of yourn, Mr. Hardy." "Never mind about that, Bax," exclaimed the young sailor, cutting him short in his peremptory quarter-deck way. "Where's the constable?" "He bain't cooming," answered Bax. "He knows the difference between climbing up a hill and climbing into bed." "Sit down, Bax, and take some whisky," said Hardy, both he and Julia laughing; and after waiting for the farmer to mingle some whisky and water and pull a chair, he said, "Tell us what passed, Bax."