"No," answered Israel, "and the beach at Dover ain't very smooth either.
I guess, upon second thought, you had better not try 'em on at all.
Besides, I am a simple sort of a soul--eccentric they call me--and don't
like my boots to go out of my sight. Ha! ha!"

"What are you laughing at?" said the fellow testily.

"Odd idea! I was just looking at those sad old patched boots there on
your feet, and thinking to myself what leaky fire-buckets they would be
to pass up a ladder on a burning building. It would hardly be fair now
to swop my new boots for those old fire-buckets, would it?"

"By plunko!" cried the fellow, willing now by a bold stroke to change
the subject, which was growing slightly annoying; "by plunko, I believe
we are getting nigh Dover. Let's see."

And so saying, he sprang up the ladder to the deck. Upon Israel
following, he found the little craft half becalmed, rolling on short
swells almost in the exact middle of the channel. It was just before the
break of the morning; the air clear and fine; the heavens spangled with
moistly twinkling stars. The French and English coasts lay distinctly
visible in the strange starlight, the white cliffs of Dover resembling a
long gabled block of marble houses. Both shores showed a long straight
row of lamps. Israel seemed standing in the middle of the crossing of
some wide stately street in London. Presently a breeze sprang up, and
ere long our adventurer disembarked at his destined port, and directly
posted on for Brentford.

The following afternoon, having gained unobserved admittance into the
house, according to preconcerted signals, he was sitting in Squire