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How am I to know that
you are not shamming friendship now?"
"No, young man," returned the seaman with blinking solemnity. "I'm
not shammin' drunk. I on'y wish I was, for I'm three sheets in the wind
at this minute, an' I've a splittin' headache due i' the mornin'. The way
as you've got to find out whether I'm fair an' above-board is to look me
straight in the face an' don't wink. If that don't settle the question,
p'r'aps it'll convince you w'en I tells you that I don't care a rap whether
you go back to that there grog-shop or not. Only I'll clear my
conscience--leastways, wot's left of it--by tellin' ye that if you do--
you--you'll wish as how you hadn't--supposin' they leave you the power
to wish anything at all."

"Well, I believe you are a true man, Mister Molloy--"
"Don't Mister me, mate," interrupted the seaman.
"My name's Jack Molloy, at your service, an' that name don't require no
handle--either Mister or Esquire--to prop it up."
The way in which the sailor squared his broad shoulders when he said
this rendered it necessary to prop himself up. Seeing which, Miles
afforded the needful aid by taking his arm in a friendly way.
"But come, let us go back," he said. "I must pay for my beer, you
know."
"Your beer is paid for, young man," said Molloy, stopping and refusing
to move. "I paid for it, so you've on'y got to settle with me. Besides, if
you go back you're done for. And you've no call to go back to say
farewell to your dear friend Sloper, for he'll on'y grieve over the loss of
your tin. As to the unpurliteness o' the partin'--he won't break his heart
over that. No--you'll come wi' me down to the Sailors' Welcome near
the dock-gates, where you can get a good bed for sixpence a night, a
heavy blow-out for tenpence, with a splendid readin'-room, full o'
rockin' chairs, an' all the rest of it for nothin'. An there's a
lavatory--that's the name that they give to a place for cleanin' of
yourself up--a lavatory--where you can wash yourself, if you like, till
your skin comes off! W'en I first putt up at the Welcome, the messmate
as took me there said to me, says he, `Jack,' says he, `you was always
fond o' water.' `Right you are,' says I. `Well,' says he, `there's a place in
the Sailors' Welcome where you can wash yourself all day, if you like,
for nothing!'
"I do b'lieve it was that as indooced me to give in. I went an' saw this
lavatory, an' I was so took up with it that I washed my hands in every
bason in the place--one arter the other--an' used up ever so much soap,
an'--would you believe it?--my hands wasn't clean after all! Yes, it's
one the wery best things in Portsm'uth, is Miss Robinson's Welcome--"
"Miss Robinson again!" exclaimed Miles.

"Ay--wot have you got to find fault wi' Miss Robinson?" demanded the
sailor sternly.
"No fault to find at all," replied Miles, suffering himself to be hurried
away by his new friend; "but wherever I have gone since arriving in
Portsmouth her name has cropped up!"
"In Portsmouth!" echoed the sailor. "Let me tell you, young man, that
wherever you go all over the world, if there's a British soldier there,
Miss Sarah Robinson's name will be sure to crop up. Why, don't you
know that she's `The Soldiers' Friend'?"
"I'm afraid I must confess to ignorance on the point--yet, stay, now you
couple her name with `The Soldier's Friend,' I have got a faint
remembrance of having heard it before. Have I not heard of a Miss
Weston, too, in connection with a work of some sort among sailors?"
"Ay, no doubt ye have. She has a grand Institoot in Portsm'uth too, but
she goes in for sailors only--all over the kingdom--w'ereas Miss
Robinson goes in for soldiers an' sailors both, though mainly for the
soldiers. She set agoin' the Sailors' Welcome before Miss Weston began
in Portsm'uth, an' so she keeps it up, but there ain't no opposition or
rivalry. Their aims is pretty much alike, an' so they keep stroke together
wi' the oars. But I'll tell you more about that when you get inside. Here
we are! There's the dock-gates, you see, and that's Queen Street, an' the
Welcome's close at hand. It's a teetotal house, you know. All Miss
Robinson's Institoots is that."
"Indeed! How comes it, then, that a man--excuse me--`three sheets in
the wind,' can gain admittance?"
"Oh! as to that, any sailor or soldier may get admittance, even if he's as
drunk as a fiddler, if he on'y behaves his-self. But they won't supply
drink on the