of his office, and very sensitively jealous on the point of opposition
to his mandates. Vain, therefore, on this day were all my efforts to
corrupt the jailers; and, in fact, anticipating a time when I might
have occasion to corrupt some of them for a more important purpose and
on a larger scale, I did not think it prudent to proclaim my character
beforehand as one who tampered with such means, and thus to arm against
myself those jealousies in official people, which it was so peculiarly
important that I should keep asleep.

All that day, however, I lingered about the avenues and vast courts in
the precincts of the prison, and near one particular wing of the
building, which had been pointed out to me by a jailer as the section
allotted to those who were in the situation of Agnes; that is, waiting
their final commitment for trial. The building generally he could
indicate with certainty, but he professed himself unable to indicate
the particular part of it which 'the young woman brought in on the day
previous' would be likely to occupy; consequently he could not point
out the window from which her cell (her '_cell_!' what a word!)
would be lighted. 'But, master,' he went on to say, 'I would advise
nobody to try that game.' He looked with an air so significant, and at
the same time used a gesture so indicative of private understanding,
that I at once apprehended his meaning, and assured him that he had
altogether misconstrued my drift; that, as to attempts at escape, or at
any mode of communicating with the prisoner from the outside, I trusted
all _that_ was perfectly needless; and that at any rate in my eyes
it was perfectly hopeless. 'Well, master,' he replied, 'that's neither
here nor there. You've come down handsomely, that I _will_ say;
and where a gentleman acts like a gentleman, and behaves himself as
such, I'm not the man to go and split upon him for a word. To be sure
it's quite nat'ral that a gentleman--put case that a young woman is his