was not on good terms with his fellows, and had less of
the doctor's confidence than any of the rest of us. Naturally not of a
sweet temper, his isolated position in the house had soured him, and he
rashly attempted to vent his ill-humor on me, as a newcomer. For some
days I bore with him patiently; but at last he got the better of my
powers of endurance; and I gave him a lesson in manners, one day, on the
educational system of Gentleman Jones. He did not return the blow, or
complain to the doctor; he only looked at me wickedly, and said: "I'll
be even with you for that, some of these days." I soon forgot the words
and the look.

With Old File, as I have said, I became quite friendly. Excepting the
secrets of our prison-house, he was ready enough to talk on subjects
about which I was curious.

He had known his present master as a young man, and was perfectly
familiar with all the events of his career. From various conversations,
at odds and ends of spare time, I discovered that Doctor Dulcifer had
begun life as a footman in a gentleman's family; that his young mistress
had eloped with him, taking away with her every article of value that
was her own personal property, in the shape of jewelry and dresses; that
they had lived upon the sale of these things for some time; and that
the husband, when the wife's means were exhausted, had turned
strolling-player for a year or two. Abandoning that pursuit, he had
next become a quack-doctor, first in a resident, then in a vagabond
capacity--taking a medical degree of his own conferring, and holding to
it as a good traveling title for the rest of his life. From the selling
of quack medicines he had proceeded to the adulterating of foreign
wines, varied by lucrative evening occupation in the Paris gambling
houses. On returning to his native land, he still continued to turn his
chemical knowledge to account, by giving his services to that particular
branch of our commercial industry which is commonly described as the
adulteration of commodities; and from this he had gradually risen to
the more refined pursuit of adulterating gold and silver--or, to use the
common phrase again, making bad money.

According to Old File's statement, though Doctor Dulcifer had never
actually ill-used his wife, he had never lived on kind terms with her:
the main cause of the estrangement between them, in later years, being
Mrs. Dulcifer's resolute resistance to her husband's plans for emerging
from p