What Will He Do With It, Book 6.

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ds the dark passage, towards the dark figure,-carelessly, neither recognizing nor fearing nor defying,-carelessly, as at any harmless object in crowded streets and at broad day. But while that eye was on him, the tatterdemalion halted; and indeed, whatever his hostility, or whatever his daring, the sight of Darrell took him by so sudden a surprise that he could not at once re-collect his thoughts, and determine how to approach the quiet unconscious man, who, in reach of his spring, fronted his overwhelming physical strength with the habitual air of dignified command. His first impulse was that of violence; his second impulse curbed the first. But Darrell now turns quickly, and walks straight on; the figure quits the mouth of the passage, and follows with a long and noiseless stride. It has nearly gained Darrell. With what intent? A fierce one, perhaps,-for the man's face is sinister, and his state evidently desperate,-when there emerges unexpectedly from an ugly looking court or cul-de-sac, just between Darrell and his pursuer, a slim, long-backed, buttoned-up, weazel-faced policeman. The policeman eyes the tatterdemalion instinctively, then turns his glance towards the solitary defenceless gentleman in advance, and walks on, keeping himself between the two. The tatterdemalion stifles an impatient curse. Be his purpose force,

el Adolphus Poole, Esq., Alhambra Villa, Regent's Park." "To-morrow, Nix my Dolly; to-morrow," muttered the tatterdemalion; "but to-night,-plague on it, where is the other blackguard's direction? Ah, here!" And he extracted from the thievish scrawls a peculiarly thievish-looking hieroglyph. Now, as he lifts it up to read by the gaslight, survey him well. Do you not know him? Is it possible? What! the brilliant sharper! The ruffian exquisite! Jasper Losely! Can it be? Once before, in the fields of Fawley, we beheld him out at elbows, seedy, shabby, ragged. But then it was the decay of a foppish spendthrift, -clothes distained, ill-assorted, yet, still of fine cloth; shoes in holes, yet still pearl-coloured brodequins. But now it is the decay of no foppish spendthrift: the rags are not of fine cloth; the tattered shoes are not the brodequins. The man has fallen far below the politer grades of knavery, in which the sharper affects the beau. And the countenance, as we last saw it, if it had lost much of its earlier beauty, was still incontestably handsome. What with vigour and health and animal spirits, then on the aspect still lingered light; now from corruption the light itself was gone. In that herculean constitution excess of all kinds had at length forced its ravage, and the ravage was visible in the ruined face. The once sparkling eye was dull and bloodshot. The colours of the cheek, once clear and vivid, to which fiery drink had only sent the blood in a warmer glow, were now of a leaden dulness, relieved but by broken streaks of angry red, like gleams of flame struggling through gathered smoke. The profile, once sharp and delicate like Apollo's, was now confused in its swollen outline; a few years more, and it would be gross as that of Silenus,-the nostrils, distended with incipient carbuncles, which betray the gnawing fang that alcohol fastens into the liver. Evil passions had destroyed the outlines of the once beautiful lips, arched as a Cupid's bow. The sidelong, lowering, villanous expression which had formerly been but occasional was now habitual and heightened. It was the

, should be rolling in wealth, and cottoned up in a palace. But he shall fork out. Sophy must be hunted up. I will clothe her in rags like these. She shall sit at his street-door. I will sh

roached, the man turned quickly, half in fear, half in menace,-a small, very thin, impish-looking man, with peculiarly restless features that seemed trying to run away from his face. Thin as he was, he looked all skin and no bones, a goblin of a man whom it would not astonish you to hear could creep through a keyhole, seeming still more shadowy and impalpable by his slight, thin, sable dress, not of cloth, but a

r out a series of questions in a mysterious language, which may be thus translated and abridged: "How long have you been

t constitutional levity which, whatever the time or circumstances, occasionally gave a stran

or two of them; broke away, crossed the country, reached the coast; found an honest smuggler; landed off Sussex with a few other kegs of brandy; remembered you, preserved the address you gave me, and c

dirty narrow staircase on one side; facing it a sort of lobby, in which an open door showed a long sanded parlour, like that in public houses; several tables, benches, the walls whitewashed, but adorned with sundry ingenio

guide. "I will go an

brandy," s

cour

-teeth of which had been sown years ago in revels or brawls, which then seemed to bring but innocuous joy and easy triumph, now began to gnaw and grind. But when Cutts reappeared with coarse viands and the brandy

ir club here, General?" asked Cutts; "'tis a bad trade; every ye

s very night. But that may be slow work, and uncertain. I

ch /billets de ba

tters which prove theft aga

expect hu

have good fri

ctionate 'adopted mother,' who wo

otte. He would have filled a churchyard with his own brats for a five-franc piece; but he would not have crossed a churchyard alone at night for a thousand naps. Well, that woman

fe. I have seen many a stout fellow, who would stand fire without blinking, sh

t man, Cutts,-the virtuous dodge! She snubs and cows me, and frightens me out of my wits, Cutts; for I do believe that the witch is determined to have me, body and soul, and

eldrich, at the strange cowardice of the stalwa

e a bed, if you can; I have not slept in

ng-room, which was less comfortless than might be supposed. He resigned his bed to the wanderer, w

o Cutts, who was composing himself to rest on the floor. "I s

nce of penal servitude, after a long process, defended with astonishing skill and enlisting the romantic sympathies of young France, had contrived to escape into another world by means of a subtle poison concealed about her /distinguee/ person, and which she had prepared years ago with her own bloodless hands, and no doubt scientifically tested its effects on others. The cobra di capella is gone at last! "/Souviens-toi de ta Gabrielle/," O Jasper Losely! But why Arabella Crane should thus continue to watch over him whom she no longer professed to love, how she should thus have acquired the gift of ubiquity and the power to save him, Jasper Losely could not conjecture. The whole thing seemed to him weird and supernatural. Most truly did he say that she had cowed him. He had often longed to strangle her; when absent from her, had often resolved upon that act of gratitude. The moment he came in sight of her stern, haggard face, her piercing lurid eyes; the moment he heard her slow, dry voice in some such sentences as these: "Again you come to me in your trouble, and ever shall. Am I not still as your mother, but with a wife's fidelity, till death us do part? There's the portrait of what you were: look at it, Jasper. Now turn to the glass: see what you are. Think of the fate of Gabrielle Desmarets! But for me, what, long since, had been your own? But I will save you: I have sworn it. You shall be wax in these hands at last,"-the mome