“Every man for himself. Besides, Mr. Love was dancing,” replied Mr. Birnie, with a dull glance of disdain. “Philosophy,” muttered Gawtrey, thrusting his dresscoat into his trunk; then, suddenly changing his voice, “Ha! ha! it was a very good joke after all--own I did it well. Ecod! if he had not given me that look, I think I should have turned the tables on him. But those d---d fellows learn of the mad doctors how to tame us. Faith, my heart went down to my shoes--yet I’m no coward!” “But, after all, he evidently did not know you,” said Morton; “and what has he to say against you? Your trade is a strange one, but not dishonest. Why give up as if---” “My young friend,” interrupted Gawtrey, “whether the officer comes after us or not, our trade is ruined; that infernal Adele, with her fabulous grandmaman, has done for us. Goupille will blow the temple about our ears. No help for it--eh, Birnie?” “None.” “Go to bed, Philip: we’ll call thee at daybreak, for we must make clear work before our neighbours open their shutters.” Reclined, but half undressed, on his bed in the little cabinet, Morton revolved the events of the evening. The thought that he should see no more of that white hand and that lovely mouth, which still haunted his recollection as appertaining to the incognita, greatly indisposed him towards the abrupt flight intended by Gawtrey, while (so much had his faith in that person depended upon respect for his confident daring, and so thoroughly fearless was Morton’s own nature) he felt himself greatly shaken in his allegiance to the chief, by recollecting the effect produced on his valour by a single glance from the instrument of law. He had not yet lived long enough to be aware that men are sometimes the Representatives of Things; that what the scytale was to the Spartan hero, a sheriff’s writ often is to a Waterloo medallist: that a Bow Street runner will enter the foulest den where Murder sits with his fellows, and pick out his prey with the beck of his forefinger. That, in short, the thing called LAW, once made tangible and present, rarely fails to palsy the fierce heart of the thing called CRIME. For Law is the symbol of all mankind reared against One Foe--the Man of Crime. Not yet aware of this truth, nor, indeed, in the least suspecting Gawtrey of worse offences than those of a charlatanic and equivocal profession, the young man mused over his protector’s cowardice in disdain and wonder: till, wearied with conjectures, distrust, and shame at his own strange position of obligation to one whom he could not respect, he fell asleep. When he woke, he saw the grey light of dawn that streamed cheerlessly through his shutterless window, struggling with the faint ray of a candle that Gawtrey, shading with his hand, held over the sleeper. He started up, and, in the confusion of waking and the imperfect light by which he beheld the strong features of Gawtrey, half imagined it was a foe who stood before him.