rusty old things, that can't have been in use since the cloisters was
built. _You_ have changed 'em, you have!" he sobbed, the notion taking
possession of him forcibly. "You are a-doing it to play me a infamous
trick, and I'll have you up before the dean to-morrow! I'll shake the
life out of you, I will!"

Laying summary hold of Mr. Jenkins, he began to shake him with all his
feeble strength. The latter soon extricated himself, and he succeeded
in impressing on the man the fallacy of his suspicion. "Don't I want to
get home to my supper and my wife? Don't I tell you that she'll set
upon me like anything for keeping it waiting?" he meekly remonstrated.
"Do I want to be locked up in these unpleasant cloisters? Give me the
keys and let me try them."

Ketch, in sheer helplessness, was fain to comply. He resigned the keys
to Jenkins, and Jenkins tried them: but he was none the nearer
unlocking the gate. In their increasing perplexity, they resolved to
return to the place in the quadrangle where the keys had fallen--a very
forlorn suggestion proceeding from Mr. Jenkins that the right keys
might be lying there still, and that this rusty pair might, by some
curious and unaccountable chance, have been lying there also.

They commenced their search, disputing, the one hotly, the other
temperately, as to which was the exact spot. With feet and hands they
hunted as well as the dark would allow them; all in vain; and Ketch
gave vent to a loud burst of feeling when he realized the fact that
they were positively locked up in the cloisters, beyond hope of
succour, in the dark and lonely night.