our particular quarry, the supposed Baxter, had come into the queer old inn in his shirt-sleeves and without his hat—he was therefore probably some neighbouring shop or store-keeper, and in the habit of turning into the ancient hostelry for a drink about noon. Such a man—that man—Scarterfield hoped to encounter. Out of him, if he met him, he could hope to get some news.
Although, as a boy, I had often seen the street front of the Goose and Crane, I had never passed its portals. Now, entering it, we found it to be even more curious inside than it was out. It was a fine relic of Tudor days—a rabbit warren of snug rooms, old furniture, wide chimney places, tiled floors; if the folk who lived in it and the men who frequented it had only worn the right sorts of costume, we might easily have thought ourselves to be back in "Elizabethan times." We easily found the particular room of which Solomon Fish had spoken—there was the door, half open, with its legend on an upper panel in faded gilt letters, "For Master Mariners Only." But, as we had inferred, that warning had been set up in the old days, and was no longer a strict observance; we went into the room unquestioned by guardians or occupants, and calling for refreshments, sat ourselves down to watch and wait.
There were several men in this quaint old parlour; all seemed, in one degree or another, to be connected with the sea. Men, thick-set, sturdy, bronzed, branded in solid suits of good blue cloth, all with that look in the eye which stamps the seafarer. Other men whom one supposed to have something to do with sea-trade—ship's chandlers, perhaps, or shipping-agents. We
