Presently a little shop loomed alongside me, and I perceived that here might be procured an essential in the matter of destruction by hanging. A mean and humble establishment it was, lighted by one paraffin lamp. The stock-in-trade apparently consisted of ropes and door-pegs--in fact, the complete equipment proper to my undertaking. Time and place agreed. It was indeed just such a gloomy, lonesome, and sequestered hole as a suicide might select to make his final purchases. From a door behind the counter there came to me a bald and mournful little man with weak eyes, a subdued manner, and the facial inanity of the rabbit. Hints of a fish dinner followed him from his dwelling-room, and through the door I could catch a glimpse of his family, four in number, partaking of that meal. “What might you want?” he asked, but in a despondent tone, implying, to my ear, that it was rarely his good fortune to have anything in stock a would-be customer desired to purchase. “I want a rope to hang a man,” I answered, and waited with some interest to see the result. The small shopkeeper’s eyes grew round; a mixture of admiration and creeping fear lighted them. “My gracious! You’re _him_, then! To think as ever I should----” Here he broke off, and in a frenzy of excitement opened the door behind him and spoke to his wife. I overheard, for he could not subdue his voice. I think he felt confronted by the supreme business transaction of his career. “Jane, Jane! Creep in the shop quiet and look at this here man! By ’Eaven! it’s the public executioner! To think as ever I should sell a rope to him! Hush!” He turned, and while he addressed me with dreadful humility, the woman, Jane, crept into the shop, and stared morbidly upon my harrowed countenance. Then she whispered to her husband-- “That’s not him, for I seed his picture in the _Police News_ last week. It’s a new one, or else his assistant!” Meantime I was being served, and it seemed that the little man suddenly awakened to the dignity of his calling before my sensational order. He began handling a wilderness of rope ends and discoursing upon them with the air of an expert as he rose to the great occasion.