'My two men are the idlest, most soul-less chaps you ever saw.

They eat too much, and they have an enormous appetite for beer; but they know the river, and they know their business, and they will do anything within the fair game if they are paid for it, and aren't asked to hurry.' That night, just after dark, Theodore Racksole embarked with his new friend George Hazell in one of the black-painted Customs wherries, manned by a crew of two men--both the later freemen of the river, a distinction which carries with it certain privileges unfamiliar to the mere landsman.

It was a cloudy and oppressive evening, not a star showing to illumine the slow tide, now just past its flood.

The vast forms of steamers at anchor--chiefly those of the General Steam Navigation and the Aberdeen Line--heaved themselves high out of the water, straining sluggishly at their mooring buoys.

On either side the naked walls of warehouses rose like grey precipices from the stream, holding forth quaint arms of steam-cranes.