anythin' of 'em. They sent a hinspector down,
an' we found a few more legs,—ah, an' even
'eads, to show 'im."

"What was the solution of the mystery?" I
said, getting impatient.

"Well," he replied, "the cat came out o' the
bag, at last. It was body-snatchers an' med'cal
studen's. When the gen'elmen at the hospital
'ad done cutting up the bodies, they gets rid
o' the limbs by pitchin' 'em into the open
shore."

I was disappointed by this tame conclusion
to what I thought was going to prove a
romantic story; and yet I persisted in questioning
my witness, in the hope of still meeting with
some startling experiences.

"People must get down the sewers," I said,
"by picking the locks of the side-entrances,
even if they don't always come up at the low
tide on this side of the river."

"Oh, they get down fast enough, sometimes,"
returned my companion, with a chuckle, "faster
than they're always able to get up. I once 'ad
a dog that got shut in a shore for a week, an'
how d'ye think we got 'im out?"

"I can't imagine," I replied.

"Well," he continued, "two on us was agoin'
along Roderide one day, when I thought I 'eard
a pen-an'-inkin'* sound comin' up a gully. My
mate didn't seem to see it, acos not having lost
a dog, he wasn't thinkin' of dogs; but I made
up my mind that it was a hanimal down the
shores, an' what's more, that it was Flusher."
* A curious phrase, which is held to mean the
yelping of a dog.

"Who's Flusher?" I asked.

"Why the dog," he said, "that's what we
called his name. I goes to the nex' side
entrance, an' almost afore I could get the trap
open, up springs the very hanimal, an' falls
senseless at my feet."

"Was he dead?" I inquired.

"No," he replied, triumphantly, "not he;
he'd taken pretty tidy care of himself down the
shores; an' he was only a little drunk with the
fresh air.

"Talking about drunk," he continued, "we've
'ad one or two rum goes o' that kind in the
shores. I remember once the side wall of a old
main giv' way, an' the men found theirselves in
a public-'ouse cellar. P'raps they 'adn't ought
to've done nothink, but giv' the parties notis,
but none on us, you know, is always perfec'.
They took a little o' this, an' they took a little
o' that, till I don't think they knew which was
shore an' which was cellar. Lucky for 'em one
o' the foremen came down afore the tide got up,
an' 'ad the wall all made right, or they'd bin
washed away, like a shot, tubs an' all."

"These were your regular men," I said; "but
don't you remember any instances of strangers
getting into trouble or danger down the sewers;
like those men who went in the other day, after
the tallow from the Tooley-street fire?"

"Oh yes," he returned, "many cases; but
we never took much notice on 'em. Once I
remember a case o' this kind, acos a fr'end o'
mine was mixed up in it."

"Let us have it, by all means," I said.

"Well," he began, "a fr'end o' mine was
smokin' his pipe one night at his garret-window,
just as you might be, when he thought he 'eard
a cough right agen his left ear. He starts up
in a fright, an' looks roun', expectin' to see
some one, but his missus 'ad gone out to get
somethin' for supper, an' there wasn't nobody
except 'imself in the room. Well, he goes back
to the winder, an' looks out, to see if any neighbours
was pokin' their fun at 'im, but he
couldn't see no one right nor left. He sits
down agen, an' begins smokin', when he hears
a muffled voice say, 'Where am I? The water's
up to my neck; for Gawd's sake let me
out!'

"When my fr'end 'eard this, he drops his
pipe into the street, an' stan's for a minit struck
all of a 'eap. He couldn't see no one, an'
couldn't make out where the voice come from.
While he was lookin' about, he 'eard the same
voice say, as nigh as he could recollect, 'Oh,
dear me! Let me out, an' I'll never come down
the shore agen.'

"When my fr'end 'eard the word shore
mentioned, somethin' struck 'im the voice came up
the rain-pipe which went down the side o' the
'ouse into the main. The top o' this pipe was
werry nigh my fr'en's winder, so he leans out,
an' shouts down it, 'Who are you? What's
your game?'

"'Oh, sir,' says the voice, 'I'm Bill Stevens,
of Num'er two, Mill Pond-court, Roderide. I
didn't go to do it, an' I'm bein' washed away in
the shore.'

"It was a lucky job for Master Bill Stevens
that my fr'end knew me, and knew where I
lived at that time. He runs roun' to me at
once, an' foun' me just goin' to turn into bed;
I comes out with a key, an' goes down arter
my gen'elman, an' finds 'im arf dead wi'
fright. There's no mistake about it; it ud 'a'
bin over with 'im in another 'our, as the tide
was comin' up fast. He'd stuck 'imself agen
the side o' the shore, like a rat, 'oldin' on to
the end o' the pipe, up which he shouted to my
fr'end. We took 'im 'ome to his father, quite
agen his grain; an' the father says, ' 'Ang the
shores; he's always down the shores; we can't
keep 'im out o' the shores; I wish there wasn't
no shores.'

"'Well,' I says to the father, 'you needn't
go on about the shores. The best thing you
can do, if the boy's 'ead runs that way, is to
put 'im under a reg'lar flusher, an' let 'im larn
the bus'ness.'"

"Did the father take your advice?"

"He did," replied my companion, regretfully,
"but some 'ow it didn't answer. The boy
wouldn't go into the shores when they wanted
'im; an' now, I think, he's a bricklayer, or
somethin' o' that sort."

I soon found, after this, that I had
exhausted my companion's stock of sewer
anecdotes. I spoke to him about the great