To shorten the melancholy story of his deeper descent into wretchedness--at the end of the tenth week after his departure from the hospital, he was so far restored to strength as to be able to walk upright, to speak in his natural tone of firmness, and would have been competent to have discharged the duties of a draper's assistant in any shop in the metropolis; but every article of clothing he had possessed, except two shirts, two pairs of stockings, and the outer suit he constantly wore, were all in pawn, and he was, now, absolutely--penniless! It was when the eleventh week began, and the dreaded Monday morning returned, when his weekly lodging-rent should be paid, that Ned stealthily descended from his attic, and passed, unobserved by his landlady, from the front door, to wander he knew not whither--except to avoid shame. By the Marsh Gate he passed, and through the New Cut, and over Blackfriars' Bridge, and, losing the remembrance of where he was, he wandered from street to street, till, suddenly, in Old Street, he was awoke to the sense of delight--a feeling he had long been a stranger to--by seeing a half-crown at the edge of the pavement, as he sauntered along with his head dropped on his chest. He snatched it up with inconceivable eagerness: no one was near to whom he could suppose it belonged, had his necessity permitted him to think of asking for its proper owner; and galled by a complete abstinence of two whole days, he hurried to the very first appearance of food that met his eye--a stall of coarse shell-fish. "How d'ye sell them?--what d'ye call them?" were the questions he put to the poor ragged man who stood by this stall of strange vendibles that Ned had seen poverty-stricken children and females stand to eat, but had never tasted them himself. "Ve calls 'em vilks, sir," answered the man, "six a penny: shall I open ye a penn'orth o' fresh uns, sir?" "Oh! these will do--let me have a dozen," said Ned Wilcom, and seized, and devoured a couple in a moment.