face to face with him at last but no footstep oyer passed the floor immediately below except his own this mystery and loneliness fancies in tom s mind the folly of which his common sense could readily discover but which his common sense was quite unable to keep away notwithstanding that quality being with most of us in such a case like the old french police � quick at detection but very weak as a power absurd inexplicable that there was some one hiding in the inner room � walking softly overhead peeping in through the doing something stealthy anywhere where he was not � came over him a hundred times a day making it pleasant to throw up the and hold communication even with the who had built in the roof and water and were about the windows all day long he sat with the outer door wide open at all times that he might hear the footsteps as they entered and turned off into the chambers on the lower floors he formed odd too regarding strangers in the streets and would say within himself of such or such a man who struck him as having anything uncommon in his dress or aspect i shouldn t wonder now if that were he but it never was and though he actually turned back and followed more than one of these suspected individuals in a singular belief that they were going to the place he was then upon his way from he never got any other satisfaction by it than the satisfaction of knowing it was not the case mr of rather deepened than the obscurity of his position for on the first occasion of tom s waiting on him to receive his weekly pay he said oh by the bye mr pinch you needn t mention it if you please tom thought he was going to tell him a secret so he said that he wouldn t on any account and that mr might entirely depend upon him but as mr said very good in reply and nothing more tom prompted him not on any account repeated tom mr repeated very good you were going to say � tom hinted oh dear no cried not at all however seeing tom confused he added i mean that you needn t life and adventures of mention any particulars about your place of employment to people generally you find it better not i have not bad the pleasure of seeing my employer yet sir observed tom putting his week s salary in his pocket haven t you said no i don t suppose you have though i should like to thank him and to know that what i have done so far is done to his satisfaction faltered tom quite right said mr with a highly creditable very proper tom hastily resolved to try him on another tack i shall soon have finished with the books he said i hope that will not my engagement sir or render me useless oh dear no retorted plenty to do ty to do be careful how you go it s rather dark this was the very utmost extent of information tom could ever get out of him so it was dark enough in all conscience and if mr expressed himself with a double meaning he had good reason for doing so but now a circumstance occurred which helped to divert tom s thoughts from even this mystery and to divide them between it and a new channel which was a very in itself the way it came about was this having always been an early and having now no organ to engage him in sweet converse every morning it was his habit to take a long walk before going to the temple and naturally as a stranger towards those parts of the town which were conspicuous for the life and animation them he became a great of the market places bridges and especially the steam boat for it was very lively and fresh to see the people hurrying away upon their many schemes of business or pleasure and it made tom glad to think that there was that much change and freedom in the monotonous routine of city in most of these morning excursions accompanied him as their landlord was always up and away at his business whatever that might be no one seemed to know at a very early hour the habits of the people of the house in which they lodged with their own thus they had often finished their breakfast and were out in the summer air by seven o clock after a two hours stroll they parted at some convenient point tom going to the temple and his sister returning home as as you please many and many a pleasant stroll they had in garden market up the perfume of the fruits and flowers wondering at the magnificence of the pine apples and catching glimpses down side avenues of rows and rows of old women seated on baskets peas looking unutterable things at the fat bundles of with which the dainty shops were fortified as with a and at the doors gratefully as of yet mixed up with brown paper seeds even with hints of and fine young curly many and many a pleasant stroll they had among the poultry where ducks and fowls with necks long lay stretched out in pairs ready for cooking where there were eggs in baskets white country beyond by cat or dog or horse or donkey new to any wild extent live birds in and looking much too big to be natural in consequence of those being much too little alive and dead innumerable many a pleasant stroll they had among the cool refreshing silvery fish with a kind of moonlight effect about their stock in trade excepting always for the ruddy many a pleasant stroll among the loads of fragrant hay beneath which dogs and 