A Rogue's Life

octor Dulcifer preserved himself from betrayal by a system of survei

want of union between us, we were not all trusted alike. I soon discovered that Old File and Young File were much further advanced in the doctor's confidence than Mill, Screw, or myself. There was a locked-up room, and a continually-closed door shutting off a back staircase, of both of which Old File and Young File possessed keys that were never so much as trusted in the possession of the rest of us. The

is profits in business could never have averaged less than five hundred per c

in fair proportion, as well

in Barkingham was paid for in the genuine Mint coinage. I used often to compare my own true guineas, half-crowns and shillings with our imitations under the doctor's supervision, and was always amazed at the resemblance. Our scientific chief had discovered a pro

t appearing to distinguish myself invidiously from my fellow-workmen. Upon the whole, I got on well with them. Old File and I

hly attempted to vent his ill-humor on me, as a newcomer. For some days I bore with him patiently; but at last he got the better of my powers of endurance; and I gave him a lesson in manners, one day, on the educatio

Excepting the secrets of our prison-house, he was read

f these things for some time; and that the husband, when the wife's means were exhausted, had turned strolling-player for a year or two. Abandoning that pursuit, he had next become a quack-doctor, first in a resident, then in a vagabond capacity-taking a medical degree of his own conferring, and holding to it as a good traveling title for the rest of his life. From the selling of quack medicines he had proceeded to the adulterating of foreign wines,

and she was devotedly fond of her daughter. At the time of her sudden death, she was secretly making arrangements to leave the doctor, and find a refuge for herself and her child in a foreign country, under the care of the one friend of her family who had not cast her off. Questioning my informant about Alicia next, I found that he knew very little about her relations with her father in later years. That she must long since have

ne long month of servitude and impri

nto the doctor's study as those questions occurred to me; but he never quitted it without locking the writing-desk first-he never left any papers scattered on the table, and he was never absent from the room at any special times and seasons that could be previously calculated upon. I began to despair, and to feel in my lonely moments a yearning to renew that childish experiment of cr

my steps when I regained my freedom? In what direction t

ried to arm myself beforehand against every possible accident that could befall me. While I was still hard at work sharpening my faculties and discipli