CHAPTER XVIII.
Adrift.
A fathomless sea is rolling
O'er the wreck of the bravest bark;
And my pain-muffled heart is tolling
Its dumb peal down in the dark.
The waves of a mighty sorrow
Have 'whelmed the pearl of my life;
And there cometh to me no morrow,
To solace this desolate strife.
Gone are the last faint flashes,
Set is the sun of my years;
And over a few poor ashes
I sit in my darkness and tears.
Had any of our readers been passing the front of St. George's Hall during the afternoon of the day on which Benny was acquitted, they might have seen our hero sitting on one of the many steps, with his face buried in his hands and his elbows resting on his knees. Hour after hour he sat unmolested, for Perks was no longer at liberty to tease him, and the police did not notice him.
Benny was utterly unconscious of the flight of time, for he was trying to decide upon some course of action by which he could honestly earn his daily bread. He felt that he was
