Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 202: what you’re looking at

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18¢ to fetch it; and in the meantime the Com- missary and myself entered into conversa- tion with the chijfonnier, A quarter of an hour return. Twenty minutes elapsed—and still he did not make his appearance. I became alarmed at this protracted absence ; and, as we were stationed against the entr ance, were well aware that Versac could n Ct have issued thence without perceiving, or being observed by us. We accordingly re-entered the building, and searched for him everywhere—from top to bottom—but all in vain! Versac was nowhere to be found. Private houses joined the three sides of the tower, which did not look into the street, and there was no other apparent means of egress or ingress save the great gateway at which we had been standing. 4 We returned to the office if the Cofamissat ry, but Versac did not join us the whole day. “There is a most unaccountable mystery in this affair,” said the Commissary, “ and I cannot help thinking that the chiffonnier is at the bottom of it.” “Shall I arrest him, Monsieur ?” “Upon what plea?” ‘asked the magistrate. “We should not know what questions to put to him; and to arrest a man upon a vague suspicion and then discharge him, were not only to render ourselves lable to an action, but also to appear erew@ous at the Prefecture.” “That, night, I was compelled to. a paix in plain clothes to a gambling-house, where a disturbance was expected. Notice had been received at the Prefecture that a certain num- ber of young men intended to possess them- selves of the bank; and in order to protect the proprietors of the « hell,” I was ordered to pass the cvening in the apartment Hgroted to play. At about ten o’clock, an individual, tolerably well dressed, entered the room in which I was a spectator of the proceedings’ of those present, and began to play at the rowge-et-novr table. He staked but small sums, and won almost every time. He, how- ever, seemed to play without system, and trusted entirely to the luck which appeared toattend him, Precisely as the clock struck twelve, he rose and departed, without hay- ing noticed me; but his form and features were too deeply impressed upon my mind to be ever effaced; for that man, who had staked his gold N apoleon, and who had probably carried away a thousand francs of sheer gains, was the chiffonnier of whe old tower of Saint Jacques | A re " PICKWICK ABROAD. assed away, and Versac did not aS y quite dark in the gloomy building I would have given worlds to have fol: lowed him and Mertained whether he re- turned to his bed of straw in the ancient building ; but I had a specific order to. obey, and dared not leave the place in “il had met that mysterious individual, A, however, inquired of the eroupiers if they had ever seen him before, and eyery one present replied in the negative. I could searcely believe that a man, with a considerable sum of money in his posses- sion, would seek a ruin as his bed-chamber, and straw for his pallet ; ‘a, ruin, through the broken windows of sehigh the pitiless night-wind whistled shrilly,—and a pallet, upon which even his brethren of the rake, the basket, and the lanthorn, would oak have condescended to stretch their limbs. For in this vast metropol lis the beggars have ‘their rendez-vous, their - jnns, their lodging- houses, and their magnificent suppers : ‘they subscribe to pay for concerts of usic and for dancing girls; and those who give the alms of charity to the poor in the street, are often deceived as to the purport to which their coin is destined. Not that we have many beggars im this country, thank God! In France none need beg,—the land is large and wide enough to afford labor to all—it i is only the idle, the worthless, or the proud that will not work! The meditated attack did not take y1 —false alarms of this kind are Neat 1eI Paris; and those -who plan the great atrocities, often repent ere itis . The moment the grey dawn sat, He on the eastern side of the tall buildings of the Palais Royal, the gamibling-house was closed, and I hastened, fatigued as I was, to the old tower of Saint Jacques, As on other occasions, the gates were unlocked,—lI as- cended the stairs with a hasty step—it was , and in the species of hollow column up which the stair-case winds. | stoppe for a moment to recover breath, just as I reached the second floor; and stnetching out my arm te support myself against the wall, my hand encountered that which I immediately re- cognised to be the face of a human being— stone-cold—and moist with the sleet which bealfhroush a little loop-hole perforated in the wall to light the stair-case. The bravest man in ext tence would have ‘been alarmed at this contact with that which to all appearance was the countenance of a corpse, and I candidly confess, that when I recollected the screanis which had emanated (C(O) 10)(0O) <SriGO@