er in time to
come. I thought of the moonlight adventures on the river, skulking along
in my boat, like a pirate on a night attack. I thought how, perhaps, I
should overhear gangs of highwaymen making their plans, or robbers in
their dens, carousing after a victory. It seemed to me that London might
be a wonderful place, to one with such a means of getting out at night.

I ate a good supper at a cook-shop, sauntered about the streets for
awhile, then sauntered slowly home, after buying a tinder box, with
which to light my candies. I found my ladder dangling unnoticed, so I
nimbly climbed to my room, pulling it up after me, like the savages in
Polynesia. I lit my candles, intending to read; but I found that I was
far too well inclined to mischief to pay much heed to my book. Casting
about for something to do, I thought that I would open a little locked
door which led to some (apparently disused) room beyond my own. I had
some difficulty in breaking the lock of this door; but a naughty boy is
generally very patient. I opened it at last, with some misgivings as to
what my uncle might say on the morrow, though with the feeling that I
was a sort of conspirator, or, shall we say, a man haunting a house,
playing ghost, coming at night to his secret chamber. I was disappointed
with the room. Like my own room, it was nothing more than a long, bare
attic. It had a false floor, like many houses of the time, but there was
no thought of concealment here. Half a dozen of the long flooring planks
were stored in a stack against the wall, so that anyone could see what
lay in the hollow below. There was nothing romantic there. A long array
of docketed, ticketed bundles of receipts filled more than half the
space. I suppose that nearly every bill which my uncle had ever paid lay
there, gathering dust. The rest of the space was filled with Ephraim's
dirty old account books, jumbled higgledy-piggledy with collections of
printed, unbound sermons, such as used to be sold forty years before, in
the great Puritan time. I examined a few of the sermons, hoping to find
some lighter fare among them. I examined also a few of the old account
books, in the same hope. Other rubbish lay scattered in the corners
of the room; old mouse-eaten saddle-bags mostly. There were one or two
empty baskets, which had once been lined with silk. In one of them, I
can't think why, there was an old empty, dusty powder-horn, the only
thing in that room at all to my taste