one long monkey-boat, black as Charon's barge, that lay moored to a
post on the towpath, some seventy-odd yards up stream, near where the
wall of the Orphanage ended. Beyond this, and over a line of ragged
thorns, the bulk of a red-brick Brewery--its roof crowned with a
sky-sign--closed the view.

The monkey-boat lay with her stem down-stream, and her after-part--her
habitable quarters--covered by a black tarpaulin. A solitary man was at
work shovelling coal out of her middle hold into a large metal bucket.
As Tilda hobbled towards him he hoisted the full bucket on his
shoulders, staggered across the towpath with it, and shot its contents
into a manhole under the brick wall. Tilda drew near and came to a
halt, watching him.

"Afternoon," said the man, beginning to shovel again.

"Afternoon," responded Tilda.

He was a young man--she could detect this beneath his mask of coal dust.
He wore a sack over his shoulders, and a black sou'wester hat with a
hind-flap that fell low over his neck. But she liked the look in his
eyes, though the rims of them were red and the brows caked with grit.
She liked his voice, too. It sounded friendly.

"Is this the Orph'nige? What they call 'Oly Innercents?" she asked.

"That's so," the young coalheaver answered. "Want to get in?"

"I do an' I don't," said Tilda.