The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 218: what you’re looking at

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

THE MESSENGER - BIRD 201 look that no solitary traveller with a well-filled purse in his pocket would choose such a hostel as a resting-place for the night. It was kept by a man and his wife named Dean, and they, as the reader may suspect, were not a whit more particular how they made money than either Solomon Patch in London or his brother Israel near Gravesend. They had a son, a lad of about eighteen, whose Christian name was Joseph. He was an intelligent, shrewd, keen fellow, having well profited by his parents’ example in such wrong-sided experiences of the world as he was likely to glean therefrom. This lad slept by himself up in a garret, or, rather, a sort of loft on the top of the house, and here might be observed precisely the same curious apparatus fixed in the roof as we have described in reference to the attic at the Dancing Bear. There was the little trap-door lightly sustained by the steel spring, the small bell, and the hutch with the three saucers on the tiles. outside. With the same regularity as — Rebecca Patch observed in replenishing those saucers did Joe Dean perform the same duty, and with equal sensitive- ness was he ready to start up from his slumbers at the slight- est summons of the metallic tongue of the monitor-bell. Above the head of his truckle-bed a common pinchbeck watch was suspended by a dirty ribbon to anail fastened in the wall. The hands of that watch indicated that it was exactly half-past two o’clock, on that same night, or, rather, morn- ing, of which we are speaking, when Joe Dean was suddenly awakened from his sleep by the tinkling chime of the bell. He started up, lighted his candle, and took the messenger- bird, which having alighted on the trap-door had sunk down with it into the room. Then ensued precisely the same process as we have already described at the Dancing Bear. Joe Dean, having first of all given the bird some water, detached the billet from beneath its wing, read its contents, made a mark upon it with a pen, folded it up again, and attached it once more to the pinion of the feathered messenger. Having fed and caressed the dove, he let it loose again through the trap-door, and away it sped on the third and last stage of its aerial journey. The lad, having noticed the time by his watch, thereupon went down-stairs and communicated to his father the nature of the message which had just been received. CONnNICECLOOOKS (CO)