Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 281: what you’re looking at

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

264 REYNOLDS’ WORKS _ when speaking of the new one which had been made to com- - municate with the adjoining room. ‘““ Well,” said Madge Somers, glancing around, “‘ I perceive all the changes that have taken place here, but I cannot understand their purpose.” “T will soon tell you,” replied Chiffin, with another of his half-terocious, half-sinister grins, accompanied too with a low, chuckling laugh. “ It was lucky I knew a capital feller of a carpenter, and another good chap of a bricklayer, — two blades of our own sort, and who were glad enough to work for a friend like me as long as they were well paid. Why, I was forced to give old Solomon fifty guineas to let me pull his house to pieces like this here. But I tell you what’s more, I have humbugged him,’ added Chiffin, lowering his voice to a whisper, ‘‘ that I will take the Billy Goat off his hands, and give him a thousand pounds for the good will. He knows I have got the best part of the blunt, » and shall have the rest, and so he bit at it directly.” Madge Somers was too keen and penetrating not to have already suspected, from what the Cannibal had been saying, that the changed but tranquil aspect of the room concealed some preparations fearfully treacherous, and she bent a look of augmenting curiosity upon the Cannibal. ‘“ Now, Madge,” he said, continuing to speak in a low, mysterious voice, “ you will understand it all in a few minutes. Didn’t you know that in one of the cellars under- neath this house, there’s a thundering deep well, which hasn’t been used for a great many years, because somehow or another the water was found to be putrid. It may he that a dead body found its way to the bottom a long time ago, which made the water bad; but whether or not, the well has never been used for the last fifteen years, and the mouth of it in the ceilar was covered up with paving-stones. Well, the next thing I must remind you of is, that under- neath this room where we are standing — and therefore betwixt this floor and the ceiling of the cellar — there’s that scullery place which old Sol and his wife have never used except to put odd things in. One of the very first things that I had done was to have the bricklayer and brick up the window of the scullery that looks into the back yard, — all natural enough, ’cos why the window was broken out and Solomon pretended to be afraid that some of the Gomichbooks a ea — .? ——— » <