BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 109 



CHAPTER VIII. 



A SOLITARY candle struggled with the obscurity 

 as we stumbled through a narrow door into the 

 shanty indicated to us. It illuminated principally 

 the features of a young gentleman in a check 

 ulster and a Tam o' Shanter cap, who sat behind 

 it with a note-book and pencil and an indefinite 

 air of being connected with the Press, and his 

 eye-glasses flashed upon us with almost awful 

 inquiry as the light caught them beneath the 

 dashing tilt of his cap. The next most immedi- 

 ate impression was of the cabin of a fifth-rate 

 coasting steamer : dingy wooden walls, a bare 

 seat running round them, two tables, three 

 cramped doorways, and a pigmy stove. That 

 was the sum-total of the surroundings ; but the 



