such a place as this!" The
detective playfully strikes the hat of the other, crowding it over his
eyes, and inquiring if he has seen Tom Toddleworth during the day. Mr.
Toddleworth was not seen during the day. No one in the bottomless pit
knows where he may be found. A dozen husky voices are heard to say, he
has no home--stores himself away anywhere, and may be found everywhere.

Brother Spyke bows, and sighs. Mr. Fitzgerald says: "he is always
harmless--this Toddleworth." As the two searchers are about to withdraw,
the shrunken figure of a woman rushes wildly into the pit. "Devils!
devils!--hideous devils of darkness! here you are--still
hover--hover--hovering; turning midnight into revelling, day into horrid
dreaming!" she shrieks at the top of her voice. Now she pauses suddenly,
and with a demoniacal laugh sets her dull, glassy eyes on Mr. Krone,
then walks round him with clenched fists and threatening gestures. The
politician-maker sits unmoved. Now she throws her hair about her bare
breasts, turns her eyes upward, imploringly, and approaches Brother
Spyke, with hand extended. Her tale of sorrow and suffering is written
in her very look. "She won't hurt you--never harms anybody;" says Mr.
Fitzgerald, methodically, observing Brother Spyke's timidity.

"No, no, no," she mutters incoherently, "you are not of this place--you
know, like the rich world up-town, little of these revelling devils.
Cling! yes, cling to the wise one--tell him to keep you from this, and
forever be your teacher. Tell him! tell him! oh! tell him!" She wrings
her hands, and having sailed as it were into the further end of the pit,
vaults back, and commences a series of wild gyrations round Mr. Krone.

"Poor wretch!" says Brother Spyke, complacently, "the gin has dried up
her senses--made her what she is."

"Maniac Munday! Maniac Munday!" suddenly echoes and re-echoes through
the pit. She turns her ear, and with a listless countenance listens
attentively, then breaks out into an hysterical laugh. "Yes! ye
loathsome denizens. Like me, no one seeks you, no one cares for you. I
am poor, poor maniac Munday. The maniac that one fell error brought to
this awful end." Again she lowers her voice, flings her hair back over
her shoulders, and gives vent to her tears. Like one burdened with
sorrow she commences humming an air, that even in this dark den floats
sweetly through the polluted atmosphere. "Well, I am what I am," she
sighs, having paused in her