gloves, pocket knives, toothpicks, studs, shirt
pins, rings (generally from young gents, early
in the morning), but handkerchiefs is the
general thing.

"Regular customers?" said Waterloo.
"Lord, yes! We have regular customers.
One, such a worn out used-up old file as you
can scarcely picter, comes from the Surrey
side as regular as ten o'clock at night comes;
and goes over, I think, to some flash house on
the Middlesex side. He comes back, he does,
as reg'lar as the clock strikes three in the
morning, and then can hardly drag one of his
old legs after the other. He always turns
down the water-stairs, comes up again, and
then goes on down the Waterloo Road. He
always does the same thing, and never varies
a minute. Does it every night—even Sundays."

I asked Waterloo if he had given his mind
to the possibility of this particular customer
going down the water-stairs at three o'clock
some morning, and never coming up again?
He didn't think that of him, he replied. In
fact, it was Waterloo's opinion, founded on
his observation of that file, that he know'd a
trick worth two of it.

"There's another queer old customer," said
Waterloo, "'comes over, as punctual as the
almanack, at eleven o'clock on the sixth of
January, at eleven o'clock on the fifth of
April, at eleven o'clock on the sixth of July,
at eleven o'clock on the tenth of October.
Drives a shaggy little, rough poney, in a sort
of a rattle-trap arm-chair sort of a thing.
White hair he has, and white whiskers, and
muffles himself up with all manner of shawls.
He comes back again the same afternoon, and
we never see more of him for three months.
He is a captain in the navy—retired—wery
old—wery odd—and served with Lord Nelson.
He is particular about drawing his pension
at Somerset House afore the clock strikes
twelve every quarter. I have heerd say that
he thinks it wouldn't be according to the Act
of Parliament, if he didn't draw it afore
twelve."

Having related these anecdotes in a natural
manner, which was the best warranty in the
world for their genuine nature, our friend
Waterloo was sinking deep into his shawl
again, as having exhausted his communicative
powers and taken in enough east wind, when
my other friend Pea in a moment brought
him to the surface by asking whether he had
not been occasionally the subject of assault
and battery in the execution of his duty?
Waterloo recovering his spirits, instantly
dashed into a new branch of his subject. We
learnt how "both these teeth"—here he
pointed to the places where two front teeth
were not—were knocked out by an ugly
customer who one night made a dash at him
(Waterloo) while his (the ugly customer's)
pal and coadjutor made a dash at the toll-
taking apron where the money-pockets were;
how Waterloo, letting the teeth go (to
Blazes, he observed indefinitely) grappled
with the apron-seizer, permitting the ugly
one to run away; and how he saved the
bank, and captured his man, and consigned
him to fine and imprisonment. Also how,
on another night,  "a Cove" laid hold of
Waterloo, then presiding at the horse gate of
his bridge, and threw him unceremoniously
over his knee, having first cut his head open
with his whip. How Waterloo "got right,"
and started after the Cove all down the
Waterloo Road, through Stamford Street,
and round to the foot of Blackfriars Bridge,
where the Cove "cut into" a public house.
How Waterloo cut in too; but how an aider
and abettor of the Cove's, who happened to
be taking a promiscuous drain at the bar,
stopped Waterloo; and the Cove cut out again,
ran across the road down Holland Street, and
where not, and into a beershop. How Waterloo
breaking away from his detainer was
close upon the Cove's heels, attended by no
end of people who, seeing him running with
the blood streaming down his face, thought
something worse was "up," and roared Fire!
and Murder! on the hopeful chance of the
matter in hand being one or both. How the
Cove was ignominously taken, in a shed where
he had run to hide, and how at the Police
Court they at first wanted to make a sessions
job of it; but eventually Waterloo was allowed
to be "spoke to," and the Cove made it square
with Waterloo by paying his doctor's bill
(W. was laid up for a week) and giving him
"Three, ten." Likewise we learnt what we
had faintly suspected before, that your sporting
amateur on the Derby day, albeit a captain, can
be—"if he be," as Captain Bobadil observes,
"so generously minded "—anything but a man
of honor and a gentleman; not sufficiently
gratifying his nice sense of humor by the
witty scattering of flour and rotten eggs on
obtuse civilians, but requiring the further excitement
of "bilking the toll," and "pitching into"
Waterloo and "cutting him about the head
with his whip;" finally being, when called upon
to answer for the assault, what Waterloo
described as "Minus," or, as I humbly conceived
it, not to be found. Likewise did Waterloo
inform us, in reply to my inquiries, admiringly
and deferentially preferred through my friend
Pea, that the takings at the Bridge had more
than doubled in amount, since the reduction
of the toll one half. And being asked if the
aforesaid takings included much bad money,
Waterloo responded, with a look far deeper
than the deepest part of the river, he should
think not!—and so retired into his shawl for
the rest of the night.

Then did Pea and I once more embark in
our four-oared galley, and glide swiftly down
the river with the tide. And while the
shrewd East rasped and notched us, as with
jagged razors, did my friend Pea impart to
me confidences of interest relating to the
Thames Police; we betweenwhiles finding
"duty boats" hanging in dark corners under