"Why, yes," answered the old chemist after considering a while. "In a sense, of course, it does. I hadn't guessed at your age you'd be so good at geography. The Avon runs down to Tewkesbury, and there it joins the Severn; and the Severn leads down past Gloucester and into the Bristol Channel." "I was sure!" The boy said it in no very loud tone: but something shook in his voice, and at the sound of it all the readers looked up with curiosity--which changed, however, to protest at sight of the boy's rags. "S--sh--sh!" said two or three. The old chemist gazed around apologetically, closed the volume, replaced it, and shepherded the children forth. CHAPTER XVII. BY WESTON WEIR. "_Down below the Weir Brake Journeys end in lovers' meeting: You and I our way must take, You and I our way will wend Farther on, my only friend-- Farther on, my more than friend-- My sweet sweeting._"--COUNTRY SONG. In a private apartment of the Red Cow Public-house Sam Bossom sat doggedly pulling at a short pipe while Mr. Mortimer harangued him. On the table stood a cheap, ill-smelling oil-lamp between two mugs of beer. Sam had drawn his chair close, and from time to time reached out a hand for his mug, stared into its depths as though for advice, and gloomily replaced it. For the rest, he sat leaning a little forward on his crossed arms, with set, square chin, and eyes fixed on a knot in the deal table top. Mr. Mortimer stood erect, in a declamatory attitude, with his back to the exiguous fire. In the pauses of his delivery, failing to draw response from Sam, he glanced down at his wife for approval. But she too, seated on a low stool, made pretence to be absorbed in her knitting; and her upward look, when her lord compelled it, expressed deep sympathy rather than assent. "Consequently," perorated Mr. Mortimer, "I conceive my personal obligations to Mr. Hucks to be satisfied; practically satisfied, even in law; as keen men of business, and allowing for contingencies, satisfied abundantly. To liquidate the seven pounds fifteen and six owing to your master you have, on your own admission, six-seven-nine in hand. We--my Arabella and I--are offered a fortnight here at forty-four shillings _per_ week between us. Not princely, I own. But suffer me to remind you that it realises the dream, as perchance it affords the opportunity, of a lifetime. She will be Ophelia. She, the embodiment (I dare to say it) of Shakespeare's visionary heroine, will realise his conception here, on this classic ground. And if, at short notice, I must content myself with doubling the parts of Guildenstern and First Gravedigger, believe me I do so cheerfully, pending fuller--er--recognition." "My Stanislas demeans himself by accepting them," said Mrs. Mortimer, still with her eyes on her knitting. "I should hope so, my poppet. Still, there is Fat in the First Gravedigger; and as our Gallic neighbours put it, everything comes to him who knows how to wait."