The Garret And The Garden

CHAPTER ONE.

THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN OR LOW LIFE HIGH UP.

SUDDEN FRIENDSHIPS.

In the midst of the great wilderness--we might almost say the wilds--of
that comparatively unknown region which lies on the Surrey side of the
Thames, just above London Bridge, there sauntered one fine day a big
bronzed seaman of middle age. He turned into an alley, down which,
nautically speaking, he rolled into a shabby little court. There he
stood still for a few seconds and looked around him as if in quest of
something.

It was a miserable poverty-stricken court, with nothing to commend it to
the visitor save a certain air of partial-cleanliness and
semi-respectability, which did not form a feature of the courts in its
neighbourhood.

"I say, Capting," remarked a juvenile voice close at hand, "you've bin
an sailed into the wrong port."

The sailor glanced in all directions, but was unable to see the owner of
the voice until a slight cough--if not a suppressed laugh--caused him to
look up, when he perceived the sharp, knowing, and dirty face of a small
boy, who calmly contemplated him from a window not more than a foot
above his head. Fun, mischief, intelligence, precocity sat enthroned on
the countenance of that small boy, and suffering wrinkled his young
brow.