It was that darkest hour which precedes the dawn, when the vessel anchored some distance off that port. The skipper and one of the crew rowed ashore with Dick in a small boat, getting out in the surf, and dragging the boat after them while they waded to dry beach. They were now on the sands near the town. The captain took polite leave of Dick, pointing out the most convenient way to go, and adding, with a grin, that, as this road was not obstructed by custom-house officers, Dick would undergo no delay over his baggage. Nothing was said about passage money. The Dover skipper had evidently provided for Dick's transportation, which was doubtless a matter of reciprocal favor between the English and the French smugglers. Dick was sorry the Dover man had been disappointed, by the interference of the revenue cutter, of the intended trip to the French coast and of the proposed payment for Dick's passage. "I'll show him the card trick if ever we meet again," thought Dick, as he walked towards the town and realized that he was on French ground; "but, if we never meet, it isn't my fault he was left behind." Dick entered Boulogne with two sailors whom he happened to overtake, and to whom he contrived to make known in French his desire of learning the nearest way to a public house. They led him to the upper town and to the cabaret for which they were bound. His pockets and stomach were alike empty, and his teeth were chattering from the cold. He was goaded by his condition to immediate effort. As soon as he entered the kitchen, where the sailors promptly sat down to bread and butter and brandy, Dick proposed he should share free their loaf, their firkin, and their keg, on condition that any card they might name should be found on the top of the pack he now held face downward before him. If the top card should be any other, he should pay for their breakfast. Of course they jumped at the proposition, and of course the top card was the one they had named. An hour later, filled with bread and butter, warmed inside by the brandy and outside by the kitchen fire, Dick went forth with some thought of soliciting employment from one of the several British merchants who, as he had learned at breakfast, dwelt in Boulogne.