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They were assuredly the strangest set of females I had ever set eyes on, and the tallest-grown: nor did it relieve my astonishment to note that they wore bonnets and shawls, as if for a journey, and that two or three were smoking long clay pipes. The room, in fact, was thick with tobacco-smoke, through the reek of which my eyes travelled to a disorderly table crowded with glasses and bottles of strong waters, in the midst of which two tallow dips illuminated the fog; and beyond the table to the figure of a man stooping over a couple of half-packed valises; an enormously stout man swathed in greatcoats–a red-faced, clean-shaven man, with small piggish eyes which twinkled at me wickedly as I picked myself up, and he, too, stood erect to regard me.

“Press-gang be d–d!” he growled, answering the virago’s call of warning. “More likely a spree ashore. And where might you come from, young gentleman? And what might be your business to-night, breakin’ into a private house?”

I cast a wild look over the bevy of forbidding females and temporised, backing a little until my shoulder felt the door-post behind me.

“I was trying to find my way to the Blue Posts,” said I.

“Then,” said the stout man with obvious truth, “you ain’t found it yet.”

“No, sir,” said I.

“And that bein’ the case, you’ll march out and close the door behind you. Not,”–he went on more kindly–“that I’d be inhospitable to his Majesty’s uniform, ‘specially when borne by a man of your inches; and to prove it I’ll offer you a drink before parting.”

He reached out a hand towards one of the black bottles. I was about to thank him and decline, withdrawing my eyes from a black-bonneted female with (unless the shadow of her bonnet played me false) a stiff two-days’ beard on her massive chin, when a noise of feet moving over the boards above, and of a scuffle, followed by loud whimpering, reminded me of Hartnoll.

“I don’t go without my mate,” I answered defiantly enough.

“And what the ‘–‘ have I to do with your mate?” demanded the stout man. “I tell you,” said he, losing his temper and striding to the stairway, as the sounds of a struggle recommenced overhead, “if your mate don’t hold the noise he’s kicking up this instant, bringing trouble on respectable folks, I’ll cut his liver out and fling it arter you into the street.”

He would have threatened more, though he could hardly have threatened worse, but at this moment a door opened in the back of the room and a bullet-head thrust itself forward, followed by a pair of shoulders naked and magnificently shaped.

“Time to start, is it?” demanded the apparition. “Or elst what in thunder’s the meanin’ o’ this racket, when I was just a-gettin’ of my beauty sleep?”

The stout man let out a murderous oath, and, rushing back, thrust the door close upon the vision; but not before I had caught a glimpse of a woman’s skirt enwrapping it from the waist down. The next moment one of the females had caught me up: I was propelled down the passage at a speed and with a force that made the blood sing in my ears, and shot forth into the darkness; where, as I picked myself up, half-stunned, I heard the house-door slammed behind me.

I take no credit for what I did next. No doubt I remembered that Hartnoll was still inside; but for aught I know it was mere shame and rage, and the thought of my insulted uniform, that made me rush back at the door and batter it with fists and feet. I battered until windows went up in the houses to right and left. Voices from them called to me; still I battered: and still I was battering blindly when a rush of footsteps came down the street and a hand, gripping me by the collar, swung me round into the blinding ray of a dark lantern.