f making false coin. Young File was the
workman-like footman; Old File was his father; Mill and Screw were the
two sinister artisans. The man of the company whose looks I liked least
was Screw. He had wicked little twinkling eyes--and they followed me
about treacherously whenever I moved. "You and I, Screw, are likely to
quarrel," I thought to myself, as I tried vainly to stare him out of
countenance.

I entered on my new and felonious functions forthwith. Resistance was
useless, and calling for help would have been sheer insanity. It was
midnight; and, even supposing the windows had not been barred, the
house was a mile from any human habitation. Accordingly, I abandoned
myself to fate with my usual magnanimity. Only let me end in winning
Alicia, and I am resigned to the loss of whatever small shreds and
patches of respectability still hang about me--such was my philosophy.
I wish I could have taken higher moral ground with equally consoling
results to my own feelings.

The same regard for the well-being of society which led me to abstain
from entering into particulars on the subject of Old Master-making, when
I was apprenticed to Mr. Ishmael Pickup, now commands me to be equally
discreet on the kindred subject of Half-Crown-making, under the auspices
of Old File, Young File, Mill, and Screw.

Let me merely record that I was a kind of machine in the hands of these
four skilled workmen. I moved from room to room, and from process to
process, the creature of their directing eyes and guiding hands. I cut
myself, I burned myself, I got speechless from fatigue, and giddy from
want of sleep. In short, the sun of the new day was high in the heavens
before it was necessary to disturb Doctor Dulcifer. It had absolutely
taken me almost as long to manufacture a half-a-crown feloniously as
it takes a respectable man to make it honestly. This is saying a great
deal; but it is literally true for all that.

Looking quite fresh and rosy after his night's sleep, the doctor
inspected my coin with the air of a schoolmaster examining a little
boy's exercise; then handed it to Old File to put the finished touches
and correct the mistakes. It was afterward returned to me. My own hand
placed it in one of the rouleaux of false half-crowns; and my own hand
also directed the spurious coin, when it had been safely packed up, to
a certain London dealer who was to be on the lookout for it by the next
night's mail. That done, my initiation was