o facilitate the safe
performance of this dangerous operation by keeping lock, bolt, and
hinges well oiled. Having secured the key, blown out the candle, and
noiselessly closed the door behind him, he left the house, and started
for the Haymarket, Covent Garden, or the Strand, a little before
midnight--or, in other words, set forth on a nocturnal tour of
amusement, just at the time when the doors of respectable places of
public recreation (which his father prevented him from attending) were
all closed, and the doors of disreputable places all thrown open.

One precaution, and one only, did Zack observe while enjoying the
dangerous diversions into which paternal prohibitions, assisted by
filial perversity, now thrust him headlong, He took care to keep sober
enough to be sure of getting home before the servants had risen, and
to be certain of preserving his steadiness of hand and stealthiness of
foot, while bolting the door and stealing up stairs for an hour or two
of bed. Knowledge of his own perilous weakness of brain, as a drinker,
rendered him thus uncharacteristically temperate and self-restrained,
so far as indulgence in strong liquor was concerned. His first glass of
grog comforted him; his second agreeably excited him; his third (as
he knew by former experience) reached his weak point on a sudden, and
robbed him treacherously of his sobriety.

Three or four times a week, for nearly a month, had he now enjoyed his
unhallowed nocturnal rambles with perfect impunity--keeping them secret
even from his friend Mr. Blyth, whose toleration, expansive as it was,
he well knew would not extend to viewing leniently such offenses as
haunting night-houses at two in the morning, while his father believed
him to be safe in bed. But one mitigating circumstance can be urged in
connection with the course of misconduct which he was now habitually
following. He had still grace enough left to feel ashamed of his own
successful duplicity, when he was in his mother's presence.

But circumstances unhappily kept him too much apart from Mrs. Thorpe,
and so prevented the natural growth of a good feeling, which flourished
only under her influence: and which, had it been suffered to arrive at
maturity, might have led to his reform. All day he was at the office,
and his irksome life there only inclined him to look forward with
malicious triumph to the secret frolic of the night. Then, in the
evening, Mr. Thorpe often thought it advisable to h