{"product_id":"2940013301221","title":"The Lifeboat","description":"CHAPTER ONE.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE BEGINNING--IN WHICH SEVERAL IMPORTANT PERSONAGES ARE INTRODUCED.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere existed, not many years ago, a certain street near the banks of\u003cbr\u003eold Father Thames which may be described as being one of the most modest\u003cbr\u003eand retiring little streets in London.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe neighbourhood around that street was emphatically dirty and noisy.\u003cbr\u003eThere were powerful smells of tallow and tar in the atmosphere,\u003cbr\u003esuggestive of shipping and commerce.  Narrow lanes opened off the main\u003cbr\u003estreet affording access to wharves and warehouses, and presenting at\u003cbr\u003etheir termini segmentary views of ships' hulls, bowsprits, and booms,\u003cbr\u003ewith a background of muddy water and smoke.  There were courts with\u003cbr\u003eunglazed windows resembling doors, and massive cranes clinging to the\u003cbr\u003ewalls.  There were yards full of cases and barrels, and great anchors\u003cbr\u003eand chains, which invaded the mud of the river as far as was consistent\u003cbr\u003ewith safety; and adventurous little warehouses, which stood on piles, up\u003cbr\u003eto the knees, as it were, in water, totally regardless of appearances,\u003cbr\u003eand utterly indifferent as to catching cold.  As regards the population\u003cbr\u003eof this locality, rats were, perhaps, in excess of human beings; and it\u003cbr\u003emight have been observed that the former were particularly frolicsome\u003cbr\u003eand fearless.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFarther back, on the landward side of our unobtrusive street, commercial\u003cbr\u003eand nautical elements were more mingled with things appertaining to\u003cbr\u003edomestic life.  Elephantine horses, addicted to good living, drew\u003cbr\u003ethrough the narrow streets wagons and vans so ponderous and gigantic\u003cbr\u003ethat they seemed to crush the very stones over which they rolled, and\u003cbr\u003eran terrible risk of sweeping little children out of the upper windows\u003cbr\u003eof the houses.  In unfavourable contrast with these, donkeys, of the\u003cbr\u003emost meagre and starved aspect, staggered along with cartloads of fusty\u003cbr\u003evegetables and dirty-looking fish, while the vendors thereof howled the\u003cbr\u003enature and value of their wares with deliberate ferocity.  Low\u003cbr\u003epawnbrokers (chiefly in the \"slop\" line) obtruded their seedy wares from\u003cbr\u003edoors and windows halfway across the pavement, as if to tempt the naked;\u003cbr\u003eand equally low pastry-cooks spread forth their stale viands in unglazed\u003cbr\u003ewindows, as if to seduce the hungry.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47068740845808,"sku":"2940013301221","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013301221_p0.jpg?v=1763590738","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013301221","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}