"Let us quicken our pace," said Tomlinson; and the pair proceeded towards
the river.

"And now," began Ned, who thought he might as well say something about
himself; for hitherto Augustus, in the ardour of his friendship, had been
only discussing his own plans,--"and now,--that is to say, when I leave
you,--I shall hasten to dive for shelter, until the storm blows over. I
don't much like living in a cellar and wearing a smock frock; but those
concealments have something interesting in them, after all! The safest
and snuggest place I know of is the Pays Bas, about Thames Court; so I
think of hiring an apartment underground, and taking my meals at poor
Lovett's old quarters, the Mug,--the police will never dream of looking
in these vulgar haunts for a man of my fashion."

"You cannot then tear yourself from England?" said Tomlinson.

"No, hang it! the fellows are so cursed unmanly on the other side of the
water. I hate their wine and their parley woo. Besides, there is no fun
there."

Tomlinson, who was absorbed in his own thoughts, made no comment on his
friend's excellent reasons against travel; and the pair now approached
the brink of the river. A boat was in waiting to receive and conduct to
the vessel in which he had taken his place for Calais the illustrious
emigrant. But as Tomlinson's eye fell suddenly on the rude boatmen and
the little boat which were to bear him away from his native land; as he
glanced, too, across the blue waters, which a brisk wind wildly agitated,
and thought how much rougher it would be at sea, where "his soul"
invariably "sickened at the heaving wave,"--a whole tide of deep and