Captain Peter Quist, for some two or three days after his parting with Philip Chater, roamed about uneasily, in his search for a desirable circus which might happen to be for disposal, and which might possess the additional advantage of having attached to it a fat lady or two, who might not object to show herself, for a consideration, to a curious public. On more than one occasion, he entered into negotiations with gentlemen—usually hoarse as to voice, and inflamed as to countenance—who appeared, at first, to possess the very thing he wanted; whereupon, “toothfuls” were exchanged, and much conversation ensued. But the guileless captain always discovered, when it came to actual business, that the “circus” consisted of a caravan or two, in a state of advanced dilapidation, up a yard; that the horses (if there had ever been any) were long since dead, or engaged in agricultural pursuits; that the clowns had long since left off being funny, and taken, for the most part, to itinerant preaching; that the fat ladies had retired from business—married the man who took the money at the doors—and started public-houses. Some three or four days of such hopeless interviewing having reduced the Captain to a state of despondency, he cast about in his mind for something which should restore him to his usual condition of placid cheerfulness; and, having imbibed somewhat freely of his favourite beverage, and being then on the outskirts of those narrow and straggling little streets beyond the actual town of Woolwich, discovered that the river drew him, like a magnet—probably from the fact of his legs being somewhat unsteady, and causing him, for that reason, to imagine that they were sea-going, like his mind. Wandering down some slippery stone steps, leading to a causeway of cobble-stones, and doing so at the imminent risk of his life, owing to his condition, the Captain precipitated himself on to the shoulders of a little man, who was seated on the top of a wooden post, with his chin propped in his hands, and who was gazing in a melancholy fashion at the water. The Captain, having saved both himself and the little man, by clasping him affectionately round the neck, broke into profuse apologies. And, indeed, they were necessary; for the little man—who was very shabby, and had no linen that was visible, but whose whiskers had a bedraggled air of having once been fashionable—was almost speechless with rage and fright; and danced about on the causeway, shaking his fist, and threatening—in a thin piping voice, and with many oaths—his vengeance upon the Captain.