“There, take him away,” says the municipal functionary, pointing with sternly contemptuous finger to the Pierrot. “And take her away,” he adds, designating the cavalier. “And you, sir,” he continues, to the postilion, “sign your name and address there, and take care to be at the court at ten in the morning. And I should advise you to go straight home, or you’ll be here again shortly, with somebody to take care of you. I wonder whether we shall have any more,” he says wearily, to his sergeant, as the captives are removed, and the room is cleared.
It does not so much matter, for the third hour is gone and past, and as we emerge into the street, the clock of St. Paul’s strikes Four. There! the twenty-four hours are accomplished, and we have progressed, however lamely and imperfectly, “Twice Round the Clock.” Good-bye, dear readers—pleasant companions of my labours. Goodbye, troops of shadowy friends and shadowy enemies, whose handwriting—in praise, in reproach, in condolence, in sympathy, in jest, and in earnest—is visible enough to me on many pages laying open before me at this moment, but whose faces I shall never see on this side the grave. Your smiles and frowns henceforward belong to the past, for my humble task is achieved, and the Clock is Stopped.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] A post-prandial paper, called the “Evening Mail,” rarely seen in the metropolis, but extensively circulated in the provinces, and especially in the colonies, and in the United States, is published as a species of vesper thunderer at the “Times” office.
[2] “The Chimes.”
[3] This old man’s name was “Corney,” at least I never knew him by any other appellation. He had been a collegian for years; and being a Briton who “stood upon his rights,” and was for “freedom of opinion,” gave the governor an immense amount of trouble. I think one of the happiest days of Captain Hudson’s life must have been the one on which “Corney” (who, it turned out, ought never to have been imprisoned at all) got his discharge. He took lodgings immediately, I have heard, at a neighbouring coal shed, and brought an action (in formâ pauperis) against the governor for false imprisonment, and wrongful detention of property, about once a fortnight.
[4] Free-grown sugar in the first two: slave-grown sugar in boxes.
[6] I am afraid that this legend must be regarded as what the “Times” newspaper called, in reference to old Peter Thellusson’s delicate sense of honour, in providing for a possible restitution of property left in his charge by the ancient noblesse of France—a “modern myth.” An analogous story, relative to the appearance of a real demon on the stage, in addition to those forming part of the dramatis personæ, is related in connection with Edward Alleyn, the actor; and the supernatural visitation, it is said, caused him to quit the stage as a profession, and found Dulwich College.