The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 400: what you’re looking at

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

A NIGHT ADVENTURE 369 exclaimed Wilkins, angrily. ‘‘ I’m no coward, but I don’t want to run my neck bang into a noose. You know deuced well I ain’t afeard; I never wor afeard of nuffin in my life. Fear and prudence is two wery different things, I takes it. If so be you was to see a mad bull a-thundering along this here lane, I s’pose yer wouldn’t go and grapple him by the ’orns, would yer? Not you, indeed; you’d precious soon bolt a von side. Well, then, that’s prudence. But 1f so be he comed right up and ’tacked yer, then I knows wery well you’d let fly at him with yer club in a jiffy. Well, then, that’s - walour.”’ “Do hold your jaw, Tony, and come along,” growled the Cannibal. ‘‘ There, I’ll go on in front, and you foller at a distance. Slip bang around the second turning to the left, and you'll find me a-waiting.”’ Having thus spoken, Chiffin the Cannibal walked rapidly on, Tony Wilkins keeping in his track, but at an interval of about fifty yards. They encountered no policemen in their way. The truth is, there very seldom are policemen to be found on their beats in that fashionable region between the hours of eleven and one, those officials being either at some -public-house which keeps open all night, or else supping cosily with the female domestics in the kitchen of some mansion where dancing and card-playing are going on up- stairs in the drawing-rooms. Thus was it that Chiffin the Cannibal and Tony Wilkins passed on unmolested, and the former halted at a side door in a garden wall, where he was speedily joined by his confederate. ‘“ Now, hush, and ’tis all right,’’ whispered Chiffin, as he flung a rope over the wall; and the iron grapnel which was at the end of the cord caught against that part of the masonry which overhung the side door. The rope was thus retained fast, and Tony Wilkins, being the lighter and more agile of the two, clambered up the wall by means of the rope. In a moment he disappeared on the other side, and drew both the bolts of the door, while Chiffin managed the lock by means of a skeleton key. Thus the Cannibal, who was too heavy and clumsy to climb the wall, which was a tolerably high one, obtained prompt admittance into the garden at the back of Saxondale House, for this was the mansion where the present burglary was being effected. “ All seems as quiet as a workus,”’ whispered Tony Wilkins, CONNIE OOO a Ss (CO)