. It would hardly be fair now
to swop my new boots for those old fire-buckets, would it?"

"By plunko!" cried the fellow, willing now by a bold stroke to change
the subject, which was growing slightly annoying; "by plunko, I believe
we are getting nigh Dover. Let's see."

And so saying, he sprang up the ladder to the deck. Upon Israel
following, he found the little craft half becalmed, rolling on short
swells almost in the exact middle of the channel. It was just before the
break of the morning; the air clear and fine; the heavens spangled with
moistly twinkling stars. The French and English coasts lay distinctly
visible in the strange starlight, the white cliffs of Dover resembling a
long gabled block of marble houses. Both shores showed a long straight
row of lamps. Israel seemed standing in the middle of the crossing of
some wide stately street in London. Presently a breeze sprang up, and
ere long our adventurer disembarked at his destined port, and directly
posted on for Brentford.

The following afternoon, having gained unobserved admittance into the
house, according to preconcerted signals, he was sitting in Squire
Woodcock's closet, pulling off his boots and delivering his dispatches.

Having looked over the compressed tissuey sheets, and read a line
particularly addressed to himself, the Squire, turning round upon
Israel, congratulated him upon his successful mission, placed some
refreshment before him, and apprised him that, owing to certain
suspicious symptoms in the neighborhood, he (Israel) must now remain
concealed in the house for a day or two, till an answer should be ready
for Paris.

It was a venerable mansion, as was somewhere previously stated, of a
wide and rambling disorderly spaciousness, built, for the most part, of
weather-stained old bricks, in the goodly style called Elizabethan. As
without, it was all dark russet bricks, so within, it was nothing but
tawny oak panels.

"Now, my good fellow," said the Squire, "my wife has a number of
guests, who wander from room to room, having the freedom of the house.
So I shall have to put you very snugly away, to guard against any chance
of discovery."

So saying, first locking the door, he touched a spring nigh the open
fire-place, whereupon one of the black sooty stone jambs of the chimney
started ajar, just like the marble gate of a tomb. Inserting one leg of
the heavy tongs in the crack, the Squire pried this cavernous gate wide
open.

"Why,