The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 193: what you’re looking at

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

186 THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. of the place. The proprietor of the establishment was busy serving his customers with coffee, cocoa, rolls and butter; whilst a lad of about thirteen was seated on a block of wood, which served as a stool, superintending the cooking of sundry red herrings and rashers of bacon, which frizzled on an enormous grid- iron, or species of wire-gril suspended in front of the fire. The odour from the fish-grease and hissing fat overpowered, for a time, the fcetid smell arising from the damp and mildew of the ill-ventilated place. Poor Meg, although born and bred in Manchester, where the olfactory nerves are more tried, perhaps, than in any town in England, felt sick as she entered the cellar where so many human beings were inhaling a vitiated atmosphere. We would wish no better punishment for the advo- cates of the window-tax than a week or two’s impri- sonment in some of the cellars of Manchester, where men breath gas instead of air: what a number of con- verts we should have. Flin’s countenance changed slightly when he saw Meg, for he guessed her errand. “‘ Where 1s my husband?” she demanded. “ Faith and I’d be puzzled to say. I haven’t seen him since last night, when he dropped in to take a cup of coffee, and left the place with some man who came in soon after him.” Flin knew by the poor woman’s manner that she had heard of Tim’s visit, and thought by his own frank COniiclooecl SS (SO