Pickwick Abroad; or, The Tour in France — page 354: what you’re looking at

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

PICKWICK ABROAD. 341 have continued the same interesting occupation until nine on the follows ing morning, had not a disagreeable noise awoke him just as the clock of the Louvre proclaimed the hour of two. Mr. Snodgrass started, rubbed his eyes, and then portruded his head, which was adorned with a night-cap, through the opening in the curtains of his bed; but he as speedily withdrew it, for, hy the sickly light of an expiring candle which he had forgotten to extinguish, he became aware that some one was in his chamber ; and his extensive imagination, aided by all his native romance of poetry, immediately transtormed the mtruder into ** a midnight robber or lurking assassm” who had come to plunder, if not to murder him at two o'clock in the morning. In a moment he was, however, agreeably undeceived. “Snodgrass, my dear fellow,” whispered a voice which the gentle- man thus amlably adjured forthwith recognised to be that of Count Boloski, ‘‘ are you awake ?” ** Quite,” replied Mr. Snodgrass. ‘“ But, for God’s sake, what is the matter ?” ‘You must know that I am a great revolutionist—a terrible repub- lican—a political offender,” returned theCount, speaking very quickly ; “and that my arrival in Paris is known. The Gendarmes— ” “The Gendarmes!” mterrupted Mr, Snodgrass in the greatest slarm. ‘““The Gendarntes have got scent of me, and are already in the court-yard,” continued the Count. “ Now—will you stick by a friend ? can I rely on you 2?” ‘ Certainly—oh! certainly,” almost screamed Mr. Snodgrass, with so piteous a face beneath his white cotton night-cap that the Count, even in the midst of his ditficulties, could not forbear from laughing. “Then keep them at bay—do not deny that you are the Count till I have had time to escape,” said the noble and persecuted Pole: “ Loveminski 1s safe. She cannot be implicated im the matter :-— and what is more, I don’t care a curse if she is,” added this generous martyr 1n the cause of freedom. Mr. Snodgrass murmured an assent to his friend’s request; and the Count, who was dressed in his travelling garb, as if he had never divested himself of it, opened the window of Mr. Snoderass’s bed-room and leapt lightly out upon the ledge on which it looked; for, on account of the other chambers in that department of the building being unusually full, our three travellers had been lodged on the top floor. Mr. Snodgrass was quite bewildered by all that had occurred within the last few moments; and fancying that his safety also de- pended upon flight, he jumped from his bed, and followed the Count through the window upon the ledge, which was happily guarded by a parapet about three feet and a half high, ““Go back, you fool—go back,” vehemently exclaimed the Count, as the noise of Mr. Snodgrass’s descent upon the ledge fell on his ear. ‘But, my dear Count,” cried Mr. Snodgrass, remonstrating in a plaintive tone against the uneeremonious injunction of his friend, while his shirt fluttered to the breeze of the chill morning. ‘His voice was lost in the air—the Count had turned the angle of the building—and no! even his footsteps were any longer audible, Mr. Snodgrass struck his forehead in despair; but as that did not 3 Comicbooks b (E(0)