Whilst I was picking my own particular weapon from amongst the armoury Haigh joined me, announcing that he also was cleaned out; and adding that he was not altogether sorry, as those flickering gas-jets bothered him. The observation, if slightly illogical, was very explanatory; and so thinking that he'd be none the worse for being looked after, I said I'd stroll back up into the town with him. As we went up through the narrow streets he imparted a long detail of woe; but he maundered over it considerably, and whether the lady who was mostly in question was his own wife, or some one else's wife, or no wife at all, was a point still hidden from me when we sheered up in front of his hotel. Here he got more mournful still, and quitted the tale of his past ill-treatment for a more pressing question of the present. "Yes, here we are, old chap, and I'm awfully sorry I can't ask you in to have something. But the fact is, I'm not in very good odour there just at present. My bill d'ye see's been galloping for the last three weeks, and at lunch to-day the proprietor fellow said he couldn't wait any longer for my remittances. He said that if they didn't come by evening he'd rather I went, leaving my baggage behind by way of souvenir. I'm afraid the two portmanteaus aren't worth very much, as I've--er--disposed of most of the contents, and supplied the weight by pieces of iron kentledge done up in one or other of the daily papers. I had a notion that I should have raised funds this evening, but circumstances intervened which--er--you understand, made me somewhat worse off than before. Of course if I went in there they might put me up again for to-night; but that proprietor fellow might be about, and I shouldn't care to meet him. He's such a nasty way of looking at a chap. So I think, on the whole, I shall just go down and sleep on my boat." "Your boat?" I repeated in a dazed sort of way. "Yes," said Haigh, blinking at me anxiously; "just a little cutter I've got down there in the harbour. But I say, dear chappie, you aren't taking it unkindly that I don't ask you in here, are you? 'Pon my honour, if I weren't dead stony broke I'd give you a drink either in this place or----" "Damn your drinks, you lucky man. If your boat and my knowledge doesn't transmogrify us from a pair of stone-brokes into a couple of bloated millionaires, I'm a Dutchman. Come along, man. Come along now." CHAPTER VI. FORE AND AFT SEAMANSHIP. It has been my fate to put to sea in some of the worst-found craft that ever scrambled into port again, but of the lot, that ugly little cutter of Haigh's stands pre-eminent.