The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 45: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

42 THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. Some, too, he read carefully through, and in his pocket-book he made various memoranda in pencil from time totime. Then he suddenly rose and clasping his hands behind him he paced the room to and fro for nearly a quarter of an hour, evidently in deep thought, and then he, as suddenly as he had risen, sat down again, and carefully collecting all the papers, he replaced them in the pocket of the saddle from where he had taken them. Having done this, he immediately rang the bell. Toggs himself waited upon a guest who promised to be so well worth the waiting on, and he was in a few minutes in the room. ** You pleased to ring, sir?” he said. ** Yes—yes.” ‘‘ What can T have the honor and the pleasure, sir, of bring- ing you ?” ‘‘ A bottle of Madeira and two glasses.” ‘‘ Directly, sir.” Toggs backed outof the room as he would have done out of ae presence of royalty, and when he was gone the stranger said — “He surely, at all events, can give me some information, and to get it from him I foresee I shall be forced to endure a world of unmeaning gossip, which wil! dreadfully weary me; but it must be so, and] am resigned to the affliction. He must know something that will be useful on the mission I have come so far to fulfill. God send it may be a successful one. He comes.’ When the landlord entered No. 8, with the bottle of Madeira, and the two glasses, it was with such a profusion of bows, that he could hardly get them placed upon the table. ‘Pray sit down,” said the traveler, ‘‘ and make yourself com- fortable.” ‘‘Thank you, sir, thank you,” said Toggs, just sitting on the extreme edge of a chair, so that the slightest knock in the world to any of its legs must have precipitated him on to the floor; ‘‘thank vou, sir;” and ‘then, with a miraculous kind of speed, he wiped out both the glasses, and held them up to the candle to see if they were perfectly clear, after which he uncorked the Madeira, and placed it before his guest. ‘‘Heip yourself, landlord,” said the stranger, after he had poured out a glass; ‘‘ what sort of a neighborhood is this?” ‘¢ Neighborhood, sir—neighborhood? How odd!” “Odd, is it ?” ‘* Not at all—oh, sir, not at all; only ve been asked that be- fore to-day, that’s what made me say how odd. As for the neighborhood itself, 1t’s a likely enough neighborhood, sir. Do you think of settling hereabouts, sir ?’ ‘No, no, I have no such intention; my home is far distant pent here. Have you any families of note residing about ere ?” | ‘‘We have, sir. There’s the Dowager Lady Muddlebustle; and then, to my mind, the pleasantest people are the Mortons.” The stranger gave a slight start, and spilt a little of his wine, as he said: comicbooks. com