fear and curiosity I lay, pondering on the thoughts of Simon the Jew and
his bag, who had come to carry me away in the height of my joys. His face
with the light of the torch upon it appeared and vanished, and flitted
before my eyes. The next morning, when daylight and courage returned, I
asked my maid whether Simon the Jew was a good or a bad man? Observing the
impression that had been made upon my mind, and foreseeing that the
expedient, which she had thus found successful, might be advantageously
repeated, she answered with oracular duplicity, "Simon the Jew is a good
man for naughty boys." The threat of "Simon the Jew" was for some time
afterwards used upon every occasion to reduce me to passive obedience; and
when by frequent repetition this threat had lost somewhat of its power, she
proceeded to tell me, in a mysterious tone, stories of Jews who had been
known to steal poor children for the purpose of killing, crucifying, and
sacrificing them at their secret feasts and midnight abominations. The less
I understood, the more I believed.

Above all others, there was one story--horrible! most horrible!--which she
used to tell at midnight, about a Jew who lived in Paris in a dark alley,
and who professed to sell pork pies; but it was found out at last that the
pies were not pork--they were made of the flesh of little children. His
wife used to stand at the door of her den to watch for little children,
and, as they were passing, would tempt them in with cakes and sweetmeats.
There was a trap-door in the cellar, and the children were dragged down;
and--Oh! how my blood ran cold when we came to the terrible trap-door.
Were there, I asked, such things in London now?

Oh, yes! In dark narrow lanes there were Jews now living, and watching
always for such little children as me; I should take care they did not
catch me, whenever I was walking in the streets; and Fowler (that was my
maid's name) added, "There was no knowing what they might do with me."