The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 215: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XVIII THE MESSENGER - BIRD A LITTLE beyond Gravesend there stood a small public- house, in a somewhat lonely spot, though by the side of the main road. The landlord of this place, which bore the name of the Dancing Bear, was called Israel Patch, and was a younger brother of the keeper of the boozing-ken in London. Not merely was he the brother of Solomon, but Israel was of kindred character and pursuits, his public-house ‘being the resort of all the desperate characters of the district, especially the smugglers belonging to the Thames and Medway. The Dancing Bear had long been the object of suspicion on the part of the local authorities, but so cun- ningly had Israel managed matters that he had never done any overt act which could be positively brought home to him. Israel Patch was a widower, but had a grown-up daughter living with him to superintend his establishment. She was a woman of about thirty, remarkably ugly, and in every wav of a character fitted to aid her father in his money- making and nefarious pursuits. Her Christian name was Rebecca, but she was universally known amongst the frequenters of the house by the diminutive of Becky. We must now observe that Israel Patch slept in a little room behind his bar on the ground floor, but Becky slept in an attic quite on the top of the house. This attic had no flat ceiling to separate it from the sloping roof, but may be described as being covered only by the roof itself, — in plain terms, it was just beneath the tiles. On a flat portion of this roof there appeared a very singular contrivance, namely, a little trap-door of a foot square, made of a piece of wood not much thicker than a good stout cardboard, 198 (E(0) EGomichbooks