"True enough, sir. And now look—the cloth is removed, and every one is ordering in something strong to wash down the supper. There goes a crown-bowl of punch—that's for the begging-letter impostors: and there's glasses of punch, and cold spirits and water, and shrub, and negus. That's the way they do it, you see, sir." Markham did indeed see, and wondered more and more at what he so saw—until his feelings of surprise changed into sentiments of ineffable abhorrence and disgust; and he longed to leave that odious den. "The person whom we seek does not appear to come," he said, after a long interval of silence. "Two hours have elapsed—and we are only wasting time here." "He must have taken refuge in some other crib, sir," returned the constable. "Let us leave this one, and make the round of the other lodging-houses in this street." Markham was glad to hurry away from Rats' Castle, the mysteries of which had so painfully shocked his generous feelings. CHAPTER CXXXVIII. A PUBLIC FUNCTIONARY. Urged by that sense of duty to which we have before alluded, and which prompted him to neglect no step that might lead to the discovery of a great criminal's lurking-place, Richard accompanied the police-officer to various houses where the dregs of the population herded together. The inspection of a plague-hospital could not have been more appalling: the scrutiny of a lazar-house could not have produced deeper disgust. In some the inmates were engaged in drunken broils, the women enacting the part of furies: in others the females sang obscene songs, the men joining in the chorus. Here a mother waited until her daughter should return with the wages of prostitution, to purchase the evening meal: there a husband boasted that his wife was enabled, by the liberality of a paramour, to supply him with ample means for his night's debauchery. In one house which our hero and the constable visited, three sisters of the respective ages of eleven, thirteen, and fourteen, were comparing the produce of their evening's avocations,—the avocations of the daughters of crime! And then those three children, having portioned out the necessary amount for their suppers and their lodging that night, and their breakfast next morning, laughed joyously as they perceived how much they had left to purchase gin! For GIN is the deity, and INTEMPERANCE is the hand-maiden, of both sexes and nearly all ages in that district of London.