She took care that they should have the lion's share of the meal. Winny would have declined having any at all, so eager was she that her father should have enough to do a few hours' work upon, but her mother assured her there was enough for her and Letty to have some as well as her father. When supper was over, it was agreed that the men should go and lie down in Brown's room for an hour or two and try to sleep, while Mrs. Chaplin cleared away and got their own beds ready. Then at half-past twelve, she was to call them, that they might be at the dock gate in good time. It was raining fast now, and the wind was almost as cold as in January, as it blew up from the river. Chaplin went down to look out at the weather the last thing before he went to lie down, and it rather pleased him than otherwise, for the wet would drive the chance loafers indoors, and so there would be the fewer at the dock gates to scramble for this job. But there was one fact that the poor fellow had altogether overlooked, and that was that a man seldom got employed at the same dock two days running, and he had been at work at this place a few hours before. Brown remembered it, however, and was afraid his companion would be rejected, and so as he went along battling against the cutting wind and rain in the darkness of the early morning, he said, "Look here, mate, we'll make a bargain for this job. Share and share alike it shall be, mind, between us for this. If you gets four hours and I gets two, three it shall be for both of us; and if I gets four and you gets two, why then it shall be the same. It was your mates, as I may call 'em, at that mission room as told us of this, and so we'll share and share alike over it." "All right, I shall get took on, I fancy; that supper has just set me up, and I could do a day's work with anybody now," said Chaplin confidently. He forgot that although he might feel better, he did not show it much in his looks yet, and, moreover, had begun to be known as broken-winded—a man who would break down after a couple of hours' driving. When they reached the dock gates, they saw that their secret was shared by at least two hundred. The foreman had taken care of this, for he wanted a good number to pick from. There in the cold rain and the darkness, the usual struggle for an hour's work took place, and Chaplin was among the number not chosen. Brown got a labour-ticket, and the eagerness with which these were struggled for, would have made one think it was for a party of pleasure rather than work of the most laborious kind that they were being given. The foreman was besieged as soon as he appeared at the top of the wall with the coveted tickets in his hand, and men prayed him to give them a chance of earning fivepence, as though it was the greatest favour that he could bestow upon them.