Oldal 231 [231]
OCR
173 the office, and accompanied it with copious directions how he was to walk straight up the passage, and when he got into the yard take the door up the steps on the right-hand side, and pull off his hat as he went into the room, Charley Bates bade him hurry on alone, and promised to bide his return on the spot of their parting. Noah Claypole, or Morris Bolter, as the reader pleases, gametes ti followed the directions he had received, which—Master Bates being pretty well acquainted with the locality—were so exact that he was enabled to gain the magisterial presence without asking any question, or meeting with any interruption by the way. He found himself jostled among a crowd of people, chiefly women, who were huddled together in a dirty frowsy room, at the upper end of which was a raised platform railed off from the rest, with a dock for the prisoners on the left hand against the wall, a box for the witmagistrates on the right; the awful lopartition which concealed the bench from the common gaze, and left the vul imagine (if they could) the full majesty of justice. here were only a couple of women in the dock, who were nodding to their admiring friends, while the clerk read some depositions to a couple of policemen and a man in plain clothes who leant over the table. A jailer stood reclining against the dock-rail, tapping his nose listlessl y with a large key, except when he repressed an undue tendency to conversation among the idlers, by proclaiming silence, or looked sternly up to bid some woman “take that baby out,” when the cries, half-smothered in the mother’s shawl, from some meagre infant. The walls were dirt-discoloured, and the ceiling blackened. ‘There was an old smoky bust over the mantel-shelf, and a dusty clock above the dock—the only thing present that seemed to go on as it ought; for depravity, or poverty, or an habitual acall the animate matter, hardly less unpleasant than the thick greasy scum on every inanimate object that frowned upon it. who might be supposed to bear a strong resemblance to his father, nobody at al! answering the description given him of Mr. Dawkins was to be seen. He waited in a state of much suspense and uncertainty until the women, being committed for trial, went flaunting out, and then was quickly relieved by the appearance of another prisoner, whom he felt at once could be no other than the object of his visit. {t was indeed Mr. Dawkins, who, shuffling into the office with the big coat sleeves tucked up as usual, his left hand’ in his pocket, and his hat in his right, preceded the jailer with a rolling gait altogether indescribable, and, taking his place in the dock, requested in an audible voice to know what he was placed in that "ere disgraceful sitivation for. s Hold your tongue, will you?” said the jailer. e ["m an Englishman, ait I?" rejoined the Dodger. “ Where are my privileges ?” “You'll get your privileges soon enough,” retorted the jailer, “ and pepper with "em." c We "11 see wot the Secretary of State for the Home Affairs has got to say to the beaks, if I don’t,” replied Mr. Dawkins. c Now then, wot is this here business? I shall thank the madg’strates to dispose of this here little affair, and not to keep me while they read the paper, for I’ve got an appointment with a gentleman in the city, and as I’m a man of my word and wery punctual in business matters, he "11 go away if I ain’t there to my time, and then p’raps there won't be an action for damage against those as kept me away. Oh no, certainly not !” At this point the Dodger, with a show of being very particular with a view to proceedings to be had thereafter, desired the jailer to communicate “ the names of them two old files as was on the bench,” which so tickled the spectators that they laughed almost as heartily as Master Bates could have done if he had heard “Silence there !” cried the jailer. s What_is this?’ inquired one of the magistrates. “ A pick-pocketing case, your worship.” “Has that boy ever been here before!" “ He ought to have been a many times," replied the jailer. " He has been pretty well everywhere else. J know him well, eral women who would have done very 15* 6 Oh! you know me, do you?" cried making a note of the state
