"Why don't you take off your shoes, matey?" he said. "They allus makes my feet sore. I don't like shoes. Jeet, Tommair-y! Jeet, Sam-mair-y?" This was a new light, and I thought, perhaps, I should be easier, for one shoe was constantly scraping the tendon at the back of my heel. So sitting down on the grass, I untied and slipped off my shoes, my socks following, to be thrust into my pocket, and I limped on, setting my feet delicately on the gravel, which hurt them, till I changed on to the short soft turf beside the path. The barge had passed me, but I soon overtook it, and then reached the boy, who watched me complacently as I trudged on, certainly feeling easier. "One on 'ems a-bleeding," said my new friend then. "Shoes allus hurts. Jeet!" "Yes, when you walk far," I said, the conversation beginning to warm now. "Walked far, matey?" "Yes, ever so far. Have you come far?" "_Pistol_," I thought he said. "Where?" I asked. "Bristol. Jeet, Sammy!" _Crack_! "All along by the river?" "We don't call it the river, we call it the canal here. It's river farther up towards London." "Are you going to London?" I said. "Yes. Are you?" "Yes," I said; and my heart was at rest, for I knew now that which I wanted to find out without asking. This river did go right to London, and I must be on the upper part of the Thames. We went on for some little time in silence, and then my new friend began: "Why don't you go and paddle yer feet in the water a bit?" It was a good suggestion, and the shallow sparkling water looked very delicious and cool. "Tie your shoestrings together and hing 'em on to Tommy's collar. You can hing yer bundle, too, if yer li-ak." I hesitated for a moment. One boy had already appropriated my bundle, but he had not the frank honest look of the one on the horse, and besides, I did not like to seem suspicious. So, tying the shoestrings together, I hung them on the tall hame of the collar, and the bundle beside them, before going quickly over the gravel down to the shallow water. "Turn up yer trousers!" shouted the boy; and I obeyed his good advice, ending by walking along the shallow water close behind the tow-rope, the soft sand feeling delicious to my feet as the cool water laved and eased the smarting wound. At last I walked out with my feet rested, and the blood-stain washed away, to run forward and join my companion, who looked at me in a very stolid manner. "Hev a ride?" he said at last. "May I?" "Fey-ther!" "Hel-lo-a!" came slowly from the barge. "May this chap hev a ri-ad?" "Ay-er!" The boy slipped down off the horse with the greatest ease, and stuck his whip into a link of the trace. "Now, then," he said, "lay holt o' his collar, and I'll give yer a leg up."