"I wonder where we shall sleep!" said Fred, looking timidly up at the dark old houses.
I have said before that I find it hard work to be very brave after dark, but I put a good face on the matter, and said I dared say old Rowe would find us a cheap bedroom.
"London's an awful place for robbers and murders, you know," said Fred.
I was hoping the cold shiver running down my back was due to what the barge-master called "the damps from the water"—when a wail like the cry of a hurt child made my skin stiffen into goose-prickles. A wilder moan succeeded, and then one of the windows of one of the dark houses was opened, and something thrown out which fell heavily down. Mr. Rowe was just coming on board again, and I found courage in the emergency to gasp out, "What was that?"
"Wot's wot?" said Mr. Rowe testily.
"That noise and the falling thing."
"Somebody throwing, somethin' at a cat," said the barge-master. "Stand aside, sir, if you please."
It was a relief, but when at length Mr. Rowe came up to me with his cap off, in the act of taking out his handkerchief, and said, "I suppose you're no richer than you was yesterday, young gentlemen—how about a bed?"—I said, "No—o. That is, I mean if you can get us a cheap one in a safe—I mean a respectable place."
"If you leaves a comfortable 'ome, sir," moralized the barge-master, "to go a-looking for adventures in this fashion, you must put up with rough quarters, and wot you can get."
"We'll go anywhere you think right, Mr. Rowe," said I diplomatically.