there had been no window, but here was
that of the unlucky laundry. The instant he had reascended, I coiled
up the ladder, and retreating with it to my room, threw it under my
bureau and jumped into bed, instantly expecting the whole house to be
in an uproar, though, as it turned out, no one was awoke by the
clatter. The following morning, the effects were merely attributed to
the attempts of some villains to break into the house, instead of out
of it.

I had now to set about and devise some other mode of egress. The place
I next fixed on for this purpose was my own window. Should I succeed,
detection would be almost impossible, every suspicion being lulled, in
consequence of the apparent difficulties for such an attempt. In
addition to the bars, there was a wire grating in front of the window,
which, moreover, was at the top of the house; but, then, the two
windows beneath it had been economically bricked up, in order to avoid
an accumulation of the window-tax. By knotching a breakfast-knife very
finely, I managed to pass it beneath the fat piece of iron in which
the bar terminated, and then to saw in two one of the nails which
fixed it. I then took out the head of the nail, and the bar turning
round the remaining nail, as on a pivot, left a sufficient space for
my body to pass between it and the window-frame. I had but to twist
the bar back again, stick in the head of the nail, and everything was,
apparently, in its former state. By wrenching, in a slight degree, the
tenter-hooks, I could now disengage the lower part of the grating in a
moment, sufficiently to pass beneath, and having constructed a sliding
board in the floor, under which I deposited my rope-ladder, I felt
entirely secure from detection, and I was not mistaken.

It was indeed a joyous moment when I made my first experiment, and
felt my foot on the dewy grass, for I deemed that

"Then the world it was mine oyster,
Which I with knife might open."

Among these nightly rambles, there is one that will ever be, I should
think, deeply impressed upon me.

Everybody in the house had been in bed for hours. As I was far too
restless to doze on the occasion, I had been stationary at the open
window, counting the hours as they slowly passed, and it was now
getting towards two o'clock, when I was to descend the ladder, already
placed and hanging from the window.

In those days I was rarely troubled by low spirits, but at the present
moment, I m