"I am glad to see you again, lad," Captain David said, when Cyril
entered his shop. "I have been thinking of the news you gave me last
week, and the mistress and I have been talking it over. Where are you
lodging?"

"I have been lodging until now in Holborn," Cyril replied; "but I am
going to move."

"Yes; that is what we thought you would be doing. It is always better
to make a change after a loss. I don't want to interfere in your
business, lad, but have you any friends you are thinking of going
to?"

"No, sir; I do not know a soul in London save those I work for."

"That is bad, lad--very bad. I was talking it over with my wife, and
I said that maybe you were lonely. I am sure, lad, you are one of the
right sort. I don't mean only in your work, for as for that I would
back you against any scrivener in London, but I mean about yourself.
It don't need half an eye to see that you have not been brought up to
this sort of thing, though you have taken to it so kindly, but there
is not one in a thousand boys of your age who would have settled down
to work and made their way without a friend to help them as you have
done; it shows that there is right good stuff in you. There, I am so
long getting under weigh that I shall never get into port if I don't
steer a straight course. Now, my ideas and my wife's come to this: if
you have got no friends you will have to take a lodging somewhere
among strangers, and then it would be one of two things--you would
either stop at home and mope by yourself, or you would go out, and