Spring-Heel'd Jack, The Terror of London — page 248: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee -_-- - -—>-_-.-s oo =—- iil = 250 ———e——e— - oO 8 nae es eee eee - er - -— SPRING-HEEL’ D JACK: THE TERROR OF LONDON. been good policy to do so. However, he’ll know| sobered by his fright, and turning to flee as he who I am time enough, and if I don’t prove a| spoke. better antidote for drunkenness than all the seidlitz powders in London, why Spring-heeled Jack is no reader of human nature. After submitting to a good deal of chaff from the persons assembled at the different windows, Paul Kimber staggered away from the spot, swinging his lantern in one hand and his rattle in the other, lounging occasionally against the fronts of the houses, and slipping off the kerb into the roadway. Still, the watchman was fast recovering from the overpowering fumes of the liquor of which he had partaken a considerable quantity during the early portion of the night—the rain not a little tending to sober him. But for all that, his gait was unsteady, and his brain confused, and the taunts he had met with had -not a little soured his temper, which, by the way, was at all times anything but a very pleasant one. So, as he strode along, he muttered maledic- tions and threats against those who had angered him, and vowed vengeance upon the heads of one and all who had so offended his dignity and jeered his courage. “‘T wonder who he was that dared to say Il was afraid of Sprine-heeled Jack ?’’ he muttered. “Me afraid ?—me, Paul Kimber, who has had more charges in one month than any dozen watchmen ina year! I wish the fellow had given me a chance of locking him up. I wish he had. Me frightened ? '’d show him, or a dozen like him.” And Paul swung his rattle over his head, and broucht it down upon the top of a post, while the cleam in his eye bespoke how much he wished the post had been the head of Jack. “Well, I’ll go into my box and have a snooze,”’ he muttered, after he had thus given vent to his passion, ‘‘ and I shall be as fresh as a daisy in an hour. Hallo! what’s that striking? One—two three—four. My eye! what a sleep I must have had! Well, ’'m getting sober now. I suppose some of those meddling fools will try to make some harm out of my having a drop too much; but war-hawks to ’em, if they do. Pll be down on’em like a hammer. Ill watch ’em like a cat does a mouse, and when I seta chance, grab and off with them to the station. Let ’em try it on— only let ’em, and Paul Kimber won’t forget it.” He had reached his box, and pulling the upper half of the door open, he uttered a loud ery, and stagoered back, exclaimings— ‘““ Who the devil is here ?”’ “Hallo! old fellow,” cried Jack, leaning over the lower part of the door. ‘‘So you have come, have you, at last? I’ve been waiting for you this half hour.” ‘“Who are you?” cried Kimber, holding up his light, so that it came full on the mask of Jack, which it no sooner did than Kimber let fall his rattle in terror, and stood as if transfixed to the eround, “fam the man you said you would take to gaol, Iam Spring-heeled Jack !” ‘The devil!” cried Kimber, completely Jack flung open the lower part of the door, and, ere the watchman had taken two steps, was upon him, enfolding him in his arms, and lifting him from his feet, carried him, resistless, into his box. Seating Kimber on the seat, he slammed the door too upon him, and then, grasping the sides of the box, he exerted all his strength, and hurled it to the ground. The wooden edifice fell with its door next the ground, and completely prevented Kimber from getting out till assistance should arrive, CHAPTER LXXXVI. THE COUNTRY BOY AND THE LONDON MERCHANT— A FORTUNE MADE—IN SEARCH OF A WIFE, Mr. Topias Bacon was a little man in stature, but with a great mind—that is to say, he had large ideas--he made large ventures, and great successes invariably followed. — He began life as a farmer’s boy; but am- bition had crept early into his heart, and the belief that one day he would bea very great man induced him to pack up his wardrobe and tramp from Devonshire to London, in search of the fortune he was sure was there awaiting him. It was a foggy November morning when he entered the metropolis, minus his wardrobe, which consisted of a striped shirt, a pair of knitted woollen hose, and a well-patched pair of leather breeches, which he had found it necessary to sell for money to obtain food. Like many others before and since his time, he had miscalculated the distance and time it would take to reach the metropolis, but although when he did reach it, without a coin or article of apparel besides what he stood in, the boy © did not become disheartened. He saw the vast city stretching away before him, and though he was unacquainted with a single person within it, his heart was light and his spirits buoyant; for surely in such a place there wae no lack of employment for those willing to toil. «7 Tobias had not started for London with the idea that gold was to be picked up in the streets, but that it must be earned by hard work—that he must toil, early and late, six days out of every seven. If he built castles in the air, he at least built them with solid materials, and he felt certain in his own mind they would not crumble into dust. Fatigued as he was, he at once set about seek- ing employment ; and, ere he had been in London three hours, obtained a situation in the ware- house of a large cheesemonger’s. This was the first step towards the possession of that wealth he coveted. And honest, sober and industrious, he rose, not only in the estima- tion of his employer, but, in the course of ten years, to the highest position in the firm. Few would have recognised in the gentlemanly manager of the extensive cheesemonger the rough country lad who had tramped from Devonshire, in search of work, ten years before ; and. few indeed whom fortune has favoured | JOOK (Ele) NIG com