"You won't take me back! You'll hide me--you won't take me back!" "Oh, 'ush!" said Tilda. "No, I won't take yer back, an' I'll do my best, but--oh, 'Dolph!"--she brushed the back of her hand across her eyes and turned to the dog with the bravest smile she could contrive-- "to think of me bein' a mother, at _my_ time o' life!" CHAPTER V TEMPORARY EMBARRASSMENTS OF A THESPIAN. "_Sinner that I am," said the Showman, "see how you are destroying and ruining my whole livelihood!_"--DON QUIXOTE. Mr. Sam Bossom, having poled back to the towpath, stepped ashore, made fast his bow moorings, stood and watched the two childish figures as they passed up the last slope of the garden out of sight, and proceeded to deliver his remaining hundredweights of coal--first, however, peering down the manhole and listening, to assure himself that all was quiet below. "If," said he thoughtfully, "a man was to come an' tell me a story like that, I'd call 'im a liar." Twice or thrice before finishing his job he paused to listen again, but heard nothing. Still in musing mood, he scraped up the loose coal that lay around the manhole, shovelled it in, re-fixed the cover, and tossed his shovel on board. His next business was to fetch a horse from the stables at the Canal End and tow the boat back to her quarters; and having taken another glance around, he set off and up the towpath at a pretty brisk pace. It would be five o'clock before he finished his work: at six he had an engagement, and it would take him some time to wash and titivate. Canal End Basin lay hard upon three-quarters of a mile up stream, and about half that distance beyond the bend of the Great Brewery--a malodorous pool packed with narrow barges or monkey-boats--a few loading leisurably, the rest moored in tiers awaiting their cargoes. They belonged to many owners, but their type was well nigh uniform. Each measured seventy feet in length, or a trifle over, with a beam of about seven; each was built with rounded bilges, and would carry from twenty-five to thirty tons of cargo; each provided, aft of its hold or cargo-well, a small cabin for the accommodation of its crew by day; and for five-sixths of its length each was black as a gondola of Venice. Only, where the business part of the boat ended and its cabin began, a painted ribbon of curious pattern ornamented the gunwale, and terminated in two pictured stern-panels. Wharves and storehouses surrounded the basin, or rather enclosed three sides of it, and looked upon the water across a dead avenue (so to speak) of cranes and bollards; buildings of exceedingly various height and construction, some tiled, others roofed with galvanised iron. Almost every one proclaimed on its front, for the information of the stranger, its owner's name and what he traded in; and the stranger, while making his choice between these announcements, had ample time to contrast their diversity of size and style with the sober uniformity that prevailed afloat.