Often in the fog the splash has been heard, but no sooner heard than cries of "Let me die!" "Help! help!" have also risen on the midnight air. One rough fellow of my acquaintance has saved six would-be suicides from the basin of one canal, and on each occasion he has appeared to give evidence in a police-court. Five times he had given his evidence and quietly and quickly disappeared, but on the sixth occasion he waited about the court for an opportunity of speaking to the magistrate. This was at length given him, when he stated that he thought it about time someone paid him for the loss he sustained in saving these people from the canal. This was the sixth time he had attended a police-court to give evidence, and each time he had lost a day's pay. He did not mind that so very much, as it was but the loss of four shillings at intervals; but this time he had on a new suit, which cost him thirty shillings. He had thrown off his coat and vest before jumping into the water, and someone had stolen them; the dirty water had spoiled his trousers, which he had dried and put on for his Worship to see. The magistrate inspected the garments. They had been originally of that cheap material that costers affect, and of a bright lavender colour. He had jumped into an unusually nasty piece of water. Some tar and other chemicals had been moving on its surface, and his lavender clothes had received full benefit therefrom. The garments had been tight-fitting at the first, but now, after immersion and drying, they were ridiculously small. Even the magistrate had to smile, but he ordered the brave fellow to receive five shillings for expenses and loss of day's work, and ten shillings compensation for damage to his clothing. He looked ruefully at his ruined clothes and at the fifteen shillings in his hand, and went out of the court. I went to speak to him. "Look here, Mr. Holmes," he said, "fifteen shillings won't buy me a new lavender suit. The next blooming woman that jumps in the canal 'll have to stop there; I've had enough of this." I made up the cost of a suit by adding to his fifteen shillings, and he went away to get one. But I know perfectly well that, whether he had on a new lavender suit or an old corduroy, it would be all the same to him--into the canal, river, or any other water, he would go instinctively when he heard the heavy splash in the darkness or fog.