The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 365: what you’re looking at

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

304 REYNOLDS’ WORKS and then Jack Smedley would interpose a timid and hasty ‘ Hush! ”’ Presently Mrs. Smedley, consulting her husband’s silver watch which lay upon the table, said, “It is close upon nine o'clock, Jack; you must be off with that money.” ‘And I will just take a few of those religious tracts,” said Smedley, rising from his seat, ‘‘ because if I happen to be seen putting anything into those chaps’ hands, and if any question is asked, I can easily declare that it was one of these godly publications.” “ Be off with you, with your godly publications,” ejacu- lated Bab Smedley with an air of supreme disgust, and she forthwith proceeded to mix herself another glass of spirits and water. Jack Smedley wrapped a pound’s worth of silver in a piece of paper, and deposited the little packet in his waist- coat pocket. He took a handful of the religious tracts, and saying to his wife, ‘‘ When I come back we will continue our deliberations,’’ he issued from the house. Glancing hastily up and down the narrow street with the anxious look of a man whose conscience was not so pure that he had nothing to dread, Jack Smedley continued his way. To two or three of his neighbours who were standing on their thresholds, as the inhabitants of poor neighbourhoods are accustomed to do, he addressed a passing observation in a tone of the most friendly familiarity, but it was only a very cold response that in each instance he received. Muttering to himself an imprecation against the individuals who were thus frigid toward him, Smedley continued his way, and in about ten minutes he reached Mint Street. Some little improvement had within the last few years been made in this neighbourhood, but it was still at the time at which we are writing — as it also is at the present day — the resort of all society’s lowest and vilest outcasts. Every now and then Jack Smedley looked back to see if he were followed by any suspicious individual, and in order to give a colour to his visit to this vile neighbourhood, he occasionally put a tract into some hand that was thrust forth with the expectation of receiving alms. This proceeding on Mr. Smedley’s part brought down upon him the curse of disappointment or the gibe of ridicule, but he cared not. At length Mr. Smedley reached the corner of a narrow, ECORNICLIOO KS (E(0)