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Updated: June 10, 2025
The block in which he was now wandering was quite dark and dismal, save for a single gas-jet hanging almost hidden within a dirty globe, over some steep steps that led into a cellar. Mr. Dootleby concluded to stop there and ask his way. As he approached the cellar, he heard what seemed to be cries of distress.
Alma came behind and turned up the hall gas-jet with a sudden flash that made them both jump a little. The gas inside rendered it more difficult to tell who was on the threshold, but Mrs. Leighton decided from a timorous peep through the scrims that it was a lady and gentleman. Something in this distribution of sex emboldened her; she took her life in her hand, and opened the door.
She always lit the gas as late as possible, keeping the box of matches at her elbow, so that if any one came she could apply a quick flame to the gas-jet. At length through the deepening dusk she distinguished a slim dark figure coming down the steps to the shop. With a little warmth of pleasure about her heart she reached up to light the gas.
Dickson rang the antiquated bell, and was presently admitted to a dark hall floored with oilcloth, where a single gas-jet showed that on one side was the business office and on the other the living-rooms. Mr. Loudon was at supper, he was told, and he sent in his card. Almost at once the door at the end on the left side was flung open and a large figure appeared flourishing a napkin.
This is the fourteenth I can take possession to-morrow." They exchanged a glance, and Madame Jourdain arose. "Very well, monsieur," she said. "Will you have the kindness to come and look at the room?" I followed her up the stair, giddy at my good fortune. She opened a door and lighted a gas-jet against the wall. "I am sure you will like the apartment, monsieur," she said.
Clear out," growled Kennedy. They retreated precipitately, and Craig hastily opened his bag of tools. "Quick, Walter, shut the door and hold it," exclaimed Craig, working rapidly. He unwrapped a little package and took out a round, flat, disc-like thing of black vulcanized rubber. Jumping up on a table, he fixed it to the top of the reflector over the gas-jet.
Its solitary gas-jet had, with begrudged illumination, sicklied o'er the pages of those innumerable borrowed books with which he had sought to dull poignant self-consciousness.... A tomb!... Bitterly he granted the aptness of that description of his cubicle: mausoleum of his every hope and aspiration, sepulchre of all his ability and promise.
Somerville seized him by the shoulders and, with a sudden jerk, stood him beside his sister under the gas-jet. "You little brute!" said Somerville. "It was you all along." And the Babe, seeing the game was up, and glad that the joke had not been entirely on one side, confessed. Jack Herring and Somerville the Briefless went that night with Johnny and his sister to the theatre and on other nights.
It was long past ten o'clock and the corridors stretched out their dusky deserted length from one dim gas-jet to another flickering in the shadows, when Lucine crept back to her room. Laura raised a wide-eyed anxious face from the white pillow. "Lucine, I couldn't sleep until I knew." The older girl sat down on the bed and drew the little figure close.
And that dreadful gong which had interrupted my slumbers, and which must once have belonged to a mandarin of the most warlike tendencies, and of three buttons at least, judging by the din it was capable of, was banging away down-stairs and reverberating through the house; while the score of boys or so, who occupied the dormitory along with Tom and myself, were jumping out of bed and dressing as hurriedly as they could in the semi-darkness of the wintry morning, which the twinkling of the solitary gas-jet, still alight near the door, over Smiley's couch, rendered even more dusky and dismal by contrast.
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