into the street, or draw up whatever
he desired; and as he proposed using this outlet as the sole means of
communication with the external world when his house was closed, he had
a wooden shutter made in the form of a trap-door, which he could open
and shut at pleasure.

Here it was his intention to station himself at certain hours of the
day, and whenever he held any communication below, to flash off a
pistol, so that the smoke of the powder might drive back the air, and
purify any vapour that found entrance of its noxious particles.

He laid down to himself a number of regulations, which will be more
easily shown and more clearly understood, on arriving at the period when
his plans came to be in full operation. To give an instance, however--if
a letter should be conveyed to him by means of the pulley, he proposed
to steep it in a solution of vinegar and sulphur; and when dried and
otherwise fumigated, to read it at a distance by the help of strong
glasses.

In regard to provisions, after a careful calculation, he bought upwards
of three thousand pounds' weight of hard sea-biscuits, similar to those
now termed captain's biscuits, and had them stowed away in hogsheads. He
next ordered twenty huge casks of the finest flour, which he had packed
up with the greatest care, as if for a voyage to Barbadoes or Jamaica.
As these were brought in through the yard an accident had well-nigh
occurred which might have proved fatal to him. While superintending the
labours of Leonard and Blaize, who were rolling the casks into the
house--having stowed away as many as he conveniently could in the upper
part of the premises--he descended to the cellar, and, opening a door at
the foot of a flight of steps leading from the yard, called to them to
lower the remaining barrels with ropes below. In the hurry, Blaize
rolled a cask towards the open door, and in another instant it would
have fallen upon the grocer, and perhaps have crushed him, but for the
interposition of Leonard. Bloundel made no remark at the time; but he
never forgot the service rendered him by the apprentice.

To bake the bread required an oven, and he accordingly built one in the
garret, laying in a large stock of wood for fuel. Neither did he neglect
to provide himself with two casks of meal.

But the most important consideration was butcher's meat; and for this
purpose he went to Rotherhithe, where the plague had not yet appeared,
and agreed with a butcher to kill hi