"Huh! Ye're ower fu' of them there things ye read in the novel-books, Dickie, lad." "By George, this proves that real life is sometimes very like the novels! I hope this affair will end like them. We must find the girl, Tom; we must rescue her!" "Be jabers, we maun be spry about it, then, for the New York stage-coach starts from the sign of the George in an hour." "Come, then! But I won't leave Philadelphia till I've found her, though we have to wait for another day's stage-coach. Come, Tom, for God's sake don't be so slow!" Tom indeed walked so deliberately from the Crooked Billet that Dick had to accelerate his progress by tugging at his arm. Dick hurried him up along the wharves, without the slightest plan of action formed. "Bide a wee," said Tom, presently; "sure, there's no arriving anywhere till ye've laid out your line of march. Come wi' me into yon tavern, and we'll plan a campaign in decency and order." Dick saw the good sense of this, and turned with Tom up an alley towards a wretched-looking place, of which the use was indicated alike by its dirty sign and by the sounds of drunken merriment issuing from its windows. As Dick and Tom entered, they saw by whom those sounds were produced,--a sailor and a young woman drinking together in great good-fellowship at a table. Dick recognized both,--the sailor whom he had knocked down the night before, the girl in whose defence he had knocked him down. Both looked up as he entered, and the girl burst out laughing in a jeering, drunken fashion. "That's him," she said to her companion, who thereupon began to bellow mirthfully to himself, regarding Dick with mingled curiosity and amusement. "Wha might your friends be?" queried MacAlister of Dick. "Come away," said Dick, a little huskily; and when the two were out in the alley, whither the derisive shouts of the pair inside followed them, he added, "If the stage goes in an hour, we'd better be taking our things to the sign of the George." "But your money? 'Twas a canny quantity of coin ye had in the bit pocket there." "Damn the money! I couldn't prove anything, and I want to get away from here. But--by the lord, how can we go on without money?" "Whist, lad! If some folk choose to spend the nicht a-losing of their coin, there's others knows how to tell a different tale the morning. Do ye mind the braw soldier-looking lad I proposed to thrust my company on, in the beefsteak house? If I didn't introduce myself as Captain MacAlister, retired on half pay from his Majesty's army, and if I didn't pile up a bonny pile of yellow boys through handling the cards wi' him and his pals in his room at the George all nicht, then I'm seven kinds of a liar, and may all my days be Fridays! Oh, Dickie, lad, a knowledge of the cards, ye'll find, comes in handy at mony a place in the journey through this wicked, greedy, grasping world!" And old Tom made one of his pockets jingle as he finished.