"Have you picked your quill?"
"Yes," answered the hunchback, settling himself on top of the brown
folio. "No, 'tis a split one."
The pens were old, and had lain with the ink dry upon them ever since
the outbreak of the Dutch War. The two men were half a minute in
finding a couple that would write. Then Captain Runacles turned the
hour-glass abruptly; and for an hour there was no sound in the
pavilion garden but the scratching of quills, the murmur of pigeons
on the roof, and the creaking of the gilded vane above them.
CHAPTER II.
THE DICE-BOX.
That same afternoon, at four o'clock, Captain Barker and Captain
Runacles entered Harwich and advanced up the West Street side by
side. Each had a bulky letter in his side-pocket, and the address
upon each letter was the same. They talked but little.
On the right-hand side of West Street, as you enter the town, and a
hundred yards or more from the town gate, there stood at that time a
two-storeyed house of more pretensions than its fellows--from which
it drew back somewhat. A line of railings, covered with ironwork of
a florid and intricate pattern, but greatly decayed, shut it off from
the roadway. The visitor, on opening the broad iron gate over which
this pattern culminated in the figure of a Triton blowing a
conch-shell, found himself in a pebbled court and before a massive
front-door.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27