"I trusted you, as an honest man, down
stairs, and I find you like a thief, up here,"
returned the doctor, with a self-satisfied
smile at the neatness of his own retort.
"No," he continued, relapsing into soliloquy:
"There is risk every way; but the least risk
perhaps is to shoot him.''

"Wrong," said I. "There are relations of
mine who have a pecuniary interest in my
life. I am the main condition of a contingent
reversion in their favour. If I am missed, I
shall be enquired after." I have wondered
since at my own coolness in the face of the
doctor's pistol; but my life depended on my
keeping my self-possession, and the desperate
nature of the situation lent me a desperate
courage.

"How do I know you are speaking the
truth?" said he.

"Have I not spoken the truth, hitherto?"

Those words made him hesitate. He
lowered the pistol slowly to his side. I
began to breathe freely.

"Trust me," I repeated. "If you don't
believe I would hold my tongue about what
I have seen here, for your sake, you may be
certain that I would for——"

"For my daughter's," he interposed, with
a sarcastic smile.

I bowed with all imaginable cordiality.
The doctor waved his pistol in the air
contemptuously.

"There are two ways of making you hold
your tongue," he said. "The first is making
a dead body of you; the second is making a
felon of you. On consideration, after what
you have said, the risk in either case seems
about equal. I am naturally a humane man;
your family have done me no injury; I
will not be the cause of their losing money;
I won't take your life, I'll have your
character. We are all felons on this floor of the
house. You have come among us—you shall
be one of us. Ring that bell."

He pointed with the pistol to a bell-handle
behind me. I pulled it in silence. Felon!
The word has an ugly sound—a very ugly
sound. But, considering how near the black
curtain had been to falling over the
adventurous drama of my life, had I any right to
complain of the prolongation of the scene,
however darkly it might look at first?
Besides, some of the best feelings of our
common nature (putting out of all question the
value which men so unaccountably persist in
setting on their own lives), impelled me, of
necessity, to choose the alternative of felonious
existence in preference to that of respectable
death. Love and Honour bade me live to
marry Laura; and a sense of family duty
made me shrink from occasioning a loss of
three thousand pounds to my affectionate
sister. Perish the far-fetched scruples which
would break the heart of one lovely woman,
and scatter to the winds the pin-money of
another!

"If you utter one word in contradiction of
anything I say when my workmen come into
the room," said the doctor, uncocking his
pistol as soon as I had rung the bell, "I shall
change my mind about leaving your life and
taking your character. Remember that; and
keep a guard on your tongue."

The door opened, and four men entered.
One was an old man whom I had not seen
before; in the other three I recognised the
workmanlike footman, and the two sinister
artisans whom I had met at the house-gate.
They all started, guiltily enough, at seeing me.

"Let me introduce you," said the doctor,
taking me by the arm. "Old File and Young
File—Mill, and Screw—Mr. Frank Softly.
We have nicknames in this workshop, Mr.
Softly, derived humourously from our professional
tools and machinery. When you have
been here long enough, you will get a nickname,
too. Gentlemen," he continued, turning
to the workmen, "this is a new recruit, with
a knowledge of chemistry which will be useful
to us. He is perfectly well aware that the
nature of our vocation makes us suspicious of
all new-comers, and he, therefore, desires to
give you practical proof that he is to be
depended on, by making half-a-crown
immediately, and sending the same up, along with
our handiwork, directed in his own hand-
writing to our estimable correspondents in
London. When you have all seen him do
this of his own free will, and thereby put
his own life as completely within the power of
the law, as we have put ours, you will know that
he is really one of us, and will be under no
apprehensions for the future. Take great
pains with him, and as soon as he turns out a
tolerably neat article, from the simple flatted
plates, under your inspection, let me know.
I shall take a few hours' repose on my camp-
bed in the study, and shall be found there
whenever you want me."

He nodded to us all round in the most
friendly manner, and left the room. I looked
with considerable secret distrust at the four
gentlemen who were to instruct me in the
art of making false coin. Young File was
the workmanlike footman; Old File was his
father; Mill and Screw were the two sinister
artisans. The man of the company whose
looks I liked least, was Screw. He had
wicked little twinkling eyes—and they
followed me about treacherously whenever I
moved. "You and I, Screw, are likely to
quarrel," I thought to myself, as I tried
vainly to stare him out of countenance.

I entered on my new and felonious
functions forthwith. Resistance was useless, and
calling for help would have been sheer
insanity. It was midnight; and, even
supposing the windows had not been barred,
the house was a mile from any human
habitation. Accordingly, I abandoned myself
to fate with my usual magnanimity. Only
let me end in winning Laura, and I am
resigned to the loss of whatever small shreds
and patches of character still hang about me