"You, sir," continued Mr Musgrave, "no doubt consider London an immense, almost a limitless city; but, sir, it is too small for the bounds of misery. Often have I wandered from Knightsbridge to Mile End, yea, from Cheswick to the East India Docks, and slowly returned the way I came thinking that daylight would never break, and wondering how people spoke of London as a great city. They, sir, who would really know the limits of London, must shake hands with misery as I have done. They must wander its streets by night, without food and without hope, and they will marvel how short they are. People talk of losing themselves amongst the intricacies and many turnings of this city. It is nonsense, sir--sheer stupidity. Let them once be lost in misery, in penniless, houseless wretchedness, and should a purse show itself at their feet, they would discover where they were in a moment. The man who has no money never loses himself in London--none do but fools who have it to lose. But, sir, it was on the very night after I had attempted to sleep in Billingsgate, beneath the comfortable covering of a fishmonger's sign, and dreamed by the side of an artist in a drayman's cart, that I was wandering on the borough side of the river, and had proceeded nearly three miles beyond the Elephant and Castle, when cries for assistance roused me from my waking dream. I rushed forward. A gentleman in an open carriage, with his servant, were attacked by four footpads, armed with knives and bludgeons. I took up a stone from the road, and, hurling it at the head of one of the robbers, when within a few yards of them, stretched him on the ground. We were then man to man. I sprang upon another--I grappled with him, overpowered him, and wrenched the bludgeon from his hands, but not until he had plunged his knife into my side. It was a bad wound, but not a dangerous one. With the bludgeon which I had wrenched from the hand of the robber, I rushed upon another of his associates, who, I found, had that moment overcome the gentleman to whose rescue I had providentially arrived. I dealt him a heavy and a hearty blow upon his busiest arm, which causing him to find that he had only his limbs left, he took to his heels and ran. The two whom I had already overthrown, had anticipated him in his flight, and, on seeing him run, the fourth followed their example. I attempted to run after them, but fell upon the ground from loss of blood. The gentleman was himself wounded, but slightly; and he, with his servant, raising me from the ground, and placing me in his carriage, conveyed me to the nearest inn. There, after a surgeon had been sent for, and my wound dressed, he requested to know who I was, and to whom he was indebted for his liberty and his life. But in all that concerned myself I was silent; and, in answer to all questions as to whom or what I was, I was dumb. My wound was deep, though not dangerous; and all that I regretted was, that