"I must leave this place at once. How I came here is a mystery, but it is certain that I cannot remain." I arose from my hard couch, and approached the iron door with the confident expectation of being able to pass out without any difficulty, for I imagined that I had fallen into one of those cheap and wretched lodging houses with which the city abounds. (By the way, I may hereafter have something to say with reference to these cheap lodging-houses. Some rich development may be made, which will rather astonish the unsophisticated reader.) To my surprise, I found that the door could not be opened; and then one of my fellow-lodgers, who had been observing my movements, exclaimed: "Are you going to leave us, my lad? Then leave us your card, or a lock of your hair to remember you by." "Will you be kind enough to tell me what place this is?" said I. The man laughed loudly, as he replied-- "Why, don't you know? What an innocent youth you are, to be sure! How the devil could you come here, without knowing anything about it? But I suppose that you were drunk, which is a great pity for a boy like you. Well, not to keep you in suspense, I must inform you that you are in the _watch-house of the Tombs_!" This information appalled me. To be in confinement--to be a prisoner--to be associated with a company of outcasts, thieves and perhaps murderers--was to me the height of horror. I looked particularly at the man with whom I had been conversing. He was a savage-looking individual, with a beard like that of a pirate, and an eye that spoke of blood and outrage. He was roughly dressed, in a garb that announced him to be a mariner. In the course of a conversation that we fell into, he informed me that he had committed a murder on the preceding evening, and that he expected to be hung. "We quarrelled at cards," said he, "and he gave me the lie--whereupon I drew my death-knife and stabbed him to the heart. He died instantly; the police rushed in, and here I am. My neck will be stretched, but I don't care. What matters it how a man dies? When my time comes, I shall go forth as readily and as cheerfully as if I were going to take a drink." (I will here remark that I afterwards saw this man hung in the yard of the _Tombs_. His history is in my possession, and I shall hereafter write it.)[C]