On a Saturday afternoon about this time, Uncle Isaac, in his best black suit and very tall hat, and with the Turk’s-head walking-stick in his hand, started out to see a foreman.  Work was rather slack just now (shipwrights’ work was slack everywhere), and the three holidays a week that once were the glory and boast of a free and independent shipwright, were now apt to be a woeful compulsion.  Uncle Isaac had been of late poorer (because idler) than he liked, and in such case it was his way to seek the chance of meeting his foreman out of hours, in order to a display of rhetoric, oblique flattery, and dexterous suggestion, that might influence a distribution of short time that would be more favourable to the orator.

He had wondered much as to the fortunes of Nan and her children, but as it has been said, his tenderness of heart kept him as far as possible from what he believed must now be a scene of sheer failure and destitution: if, indeed, the shop were not abandoned; and he was by no means anxious that his poor relations should discover his new lodgings.  So now he picked his way p. 142with circumspection, and with careful cogitation of a mental map of the streets; because a thoughtless straightforward journey would take him much too near to Harbour Lane.

He crossed a swing bridge that gave access to a hundred and fifty yards of roadway ending in another swing bridge.  But there was a crook in the road, and when he passed it he found that the second bridge was open.  Now in Blackwall an “open” bridge did not mean one that the passenger could cross; that was a “shut” bridge.  The “open” bridge was one swung aside to let a ship through, as a pair of gates is opened for a carriage.  So Uncle Isaac resigned himself to wait, with an increasingly impatient group, till the bridge should swing into place again and give passage.  He stood behind the chain that hung across the road to check traffic, and meditatively rubbed his nose with the Turk’s-head.  Presently he grew conscious of a rusty figure on his left, edging unsteadily a little nearer.

“’Ow do, Mr. Mundy?” came a hoarse whisper.  And Mother Born-drunk, a trifle less drunk than usual, but careful to grasp a post, leered a grimy leer and waved her disengaged hand in his face, as one saluting a friend at a great distance.  Uncle Isaac emitted a non-committal grunt—one that might be taken for an accidental cough by the bystanders—and sidled a foot or two away.  For he, too, had known Emma Pacey in her more decent p. 143days, and, with other acquaintances of that time, was sometimes put to shifts to avoid her.

Mother Born-drunk left the post and followed her victim.  “Don’ run ’way,” she ejaculated, unsteadily.  “I’m ole pal.  Mish’ Mundy!”  She thrust out a foul paw, and dropped her voice coaxingly.  “Len’sh twopence!”  Uncle Isaac gazed uneasily in another direction, and took more ground to the right.  The waiting passengers, glad of a little amusement, grinned one at another.

“J’year, Mr. Mundy!”  This in a loud voice, with an imperious gesture.  “J’year!  Can’tche’ answer when a lady speaks t’ye?”

“Go on, guv’nor!” said a boy encouragingly, sitting on a post.  “Where’s yer manners?  Take auf yer ’at to the laidy!”  And there was a snigger.  Uncle Isaac shifted farther still, and put a group of men between himself and his persecutor.  But she was not to be so easily shaken off.  Drawing herself up with a scornful majesty that was marred by an occasional lurch, and the bobbing of the tangled bonnet hanging over one ear, she came after Uncle Isaac through the passage readily made by the knot of men.

“Ho! so it’s this, is it,” she declaimed, with a stately backward sweep of the arm.  “If a lady asks a triflin’ favour you insult ’er.  Ye low, common, scoundrel!”  This very slowly, with a deep tragedy hiss and a long p. 144pause.  Then with a piercing note of appeal: “Mr. Mundy!  I demand an answer!  Once more!  Will you lend me twopence?”

The people (a small crowd by this time) forgot the troublesome bridge, and turned to the new diversion.  “Give the laidy twopence!” roared the boy on the post, in a deep bass.  “’Arf a pint ’ud save ’er life!”

Uncle Isaac looked desperately about him, but he saw no sympathy.  Dockmen, workmen, boys—all were agog to see as much fun as possible in the time at disposal.  The pursuing harpy came a step nearer, and bawled again, “Will you lend me twopence?”

“No!” cried Uncle Isaac, driven to bay at last.  “No, I won’t!  Go away!  Go away, you—you infamious creacher!”

“You won’t?”

“No, not by no means.  Go away.  Y’ought to be ashamed of yerself, you—you—you opstroperous faggit!”

“Calls ’isself a gen’leman,” she said, lifting her gaze to the clouds.  “Calls ’isself a gen’leman, an’ uses such language to a lady!”

“Shockin’,” said one in the hilarious crowd.  “What a wicked ole bloke!”

Uncle Isaac gave another unquiet glance about him, and moved another yard.  The woman brought her eyes to earth again, and: “Won’t gimme twopence,” she p. 145proclaimed, “an’ I’m a orficer’s widow!  Never mind, len’ me a penny; on’y a penny, Mr. Mundy.  Do, there’sh a dear!  O you are a ole duck!”  And Mother Born-drunk stumbled toward Uncle Isaac with affectionately extended arms.

The crowd shrieked with joy, but Uncle Isaac turned and ran, one hand clapped to the crown of his very ............