on a little farther, by the crooked river lanes, where public houses were
as plentiful as if the entire population suffered from a raging and
inextinguishable thirst for beer. The sign-boards displayed a preference
for the plural which seems not to have escaped the observation of the
novelist. If I did not see The Six Porters, I came across The Three
Mariners, The Three Cups, The Three Suns, The Three Tuns, The Three Foxes,
and the Two Brewers; and in the last I hope that I found the original of
the tavern so often mentioned in the story.

I had first noticed it from the steamboat--"a narrow, lop-sided wooden
jumble of corpulent windows heaped one upon another as you might heap as
many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden veranda impending over the
water,"--a tavern of dropsical appearance, which had not a straight floor
in its whole constitution, and hardly a straight line. I got at the
entrance on the land side after a search among puzzling alleys, and there
I found still stronger reminders of "Our Mutual Friend." Stuck against the
wall was an array of old and new hand-bills, headed, "Drowned," and
offering rewards for the recovery of bodies. The value set upon dead
persons in Limehouse Hole is not excessive: the customary recompense for
finding them seems to be ten shillings, and in only one instance did the
price reach the dazzling amount of one pound.

By the side of the house is an approach to the river: most of the
buildings near are old and irregular, and at low tide a great deal of the
shore must be exposed. Going upon the slippery stones, beside which lay a
few idle and rickety boats, I found the expected range of windows with
"red curtains matching the noses of the regular customers." I looked in at
the door. A long passage opened a vista of pleasant bar-parlor, or
whatever it may have been, on the river-side; and, perhaps, I should have
seen Miss Abbey Potterson if I had gone to the end. Several water-side