The captain stopped, with the bell-rope in his hand, to listen to the
sound of music close at hand. A woman's voice, fresh and clear as the
song of a sky-lark, was singing "Wapping Old Stairs," to the
accompaniment of a feeble old piano.

"What a voice!" cried the sailor. "Why, it seems to pierce to the very
core of my heart as I listen to it. Let's go and hear the music,
Joyce."

"Better not, captain," answered the warning voice of the clerk. "I tell
you they're a bad lot in this house. It's a sort of concert they give
of a night; an excuse for drunkenness, and riot, and low company. If
you're going by the coach to-morrow, you'd better get to bed early to-
night. You've been drinking quite enough as it is."

"Drinking!" cried Valentine Jernam; "why, I'm as sober as a judge.
Come, Joyce, let's go and listen to that girl's singing."

The captain left the room, and Harker followed, shrugging his shoulders
as he went.

"There's nothing so hard to manage as a baby of thirty years old," he
muttered; "a blessed infant that one's obliged to call master."

He followed the captain, through a dingy little passage, into a room
with a sanded floor, and a little platform at one end. The room was
full of sailors and disreputable-looking women; and was lighted by
several jets of coarse gas, which flared in the bleak March wind.

A group of black-bearded, foreign-looking seamen made room for the