The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 292: what you’re looking at

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

THE PREPARED PITFALL 269 queer chaps which frequents the house might get in through that way and pay a visit to the premises which they are so familiar with. The next thing was to make a large hole in the scullery floor, which formed an opening, as you can very well understand, into the cellar, and of course it was managed that this opening should be just above the mouth of the well. The third thing to be done was to cut a square out of this floor here where we are stand- ing ea 5, ‘““ Ah! ” ejaculated Madge, for a moment losing her pres- ence of mind, as Chiffin pointed with his club down toward the carpet, and she instinctively started back. “Why, you ain’t such a fool,”’ he exclaimed, with a chuck- ling laugh, “to think that I am going to send you right bang through to the bottom, are you? Not I, indeed! You’ve never done me no harm, but some good turns at times — ”’ “Go on,’ said Madge, instantaneously recovering her self-possession; “‘ but it was enough to make one start to know that one was standing upon a trap-door which might suddenly fall hke a gibbet-drop beneath the feet.’’ ‘‘ Yes, and it’s arranged just like a gibbet-drop too. Look here, the trap-door is exactly in this spot,’’ and Chiffin kicked aside the carpet as he spoke, showing that the square cut out of the floor was just between the threshold of the new door that had been formed and the table. ‘““T understand,” observed Madge. ‘‘ You expect that the two gentlemen who are to be so pleasantly disposed of will pass, one close upon the heels of the other, through this new door, and then the instant they stand on the trap-door, down it is to fall.” “If you had concocted it all yourself, you couldn’t have described it better,’ observed the Cannibal. ‘‘ You see, I shall lead the way, as if it was all fair and right enough, and make believe as if I was going to sit down with them swell coves to deliberate at this table. They will follow, and then, as you have so well twigged it, down they must go. You see, on account of the situation of the well underneath, it was necessary to have the trap-door exactly in this spot, and therefore it would not have done to introduce them by the old door. If so, when coming in, they would pass clear of the trap. Now, as it is, the moment they pass the threshold CORNICLOOO© cS (C(O)