The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 264: what you’re looking at

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

Een = i MR. PAGEH’S RESEARCHES 229 The girl smiled significantly, as if she read her companion’s meaning and required no further explanation; and Page was pleased to observe that she possessed a very good set of teeth. They now descended the stairs to the kitchen, where Julia lighted a lantern, observing that the draught would blow out the candle; and thence they proceeded to the cellar. The first object which met the eyes of the commercial traveller was the pile of masonry which had been detached from the aperture that had enabled himself and Sir Richard Stamford to escape from the adjoining cellar on the preced- ing night; and a chill passed over him as he thought of the possibility of his revisit to that neighbourhood being dis- covered by the ruffian Briggs or any of his vile confederates, the consequence of which detection would inevitably be a reconsiznment to his old quarters, with unconquerable precautions against another escape. He therefore hesitated for a few moments on the upper step leading into the cellar, and was almost inclined to beat a precipitate retreat; but Julia, who had preceded him, held the lantern high up so as to fling the light upon the spot which she indicated, as she observed, ‘‘ There’s the stone which the paper alludes to.” The idea of being within reach, as it were, of a treasure which his imagination represented to be of no insignificant amount, restored Page to that desperate courage where- with he had armed himself for the present enterprise; and boldly descending the steps, he proceeded to inspect the stone beneath which the miser’s hoardings lay. “It will require some strong instrument to raise it,’ he observed, at the expiration of a few moments. ‘There is a pickaxe in the kitchen,” said Julia, “‘ and I have often wondered what it could be for. Now I under- stand why my father sometimes required such a thing.” Thus speaking, she tripped lightly away to fetch the implement, while Page retraced his steps to the threshold of the cellar, so as to guard against any treacherous intention which might possibly exist on the girl’s part to close the door upon him. On her return in about a minute, with the pickaxe in her hand, she immediately conjectured what was passing in the mind of the commercial traveller; for, gazing intently upon (C(O) i 0) Oy 0) €=) (C(O)