Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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A considerable space of time elapsed before he was enabled to successfully surmount this difficulty.

At length, however, by patience and perseverance, combined with skill, he contrived to send back the bolt from the socket by slow degrees.

This done he opened the door, entered, and closed it after him, so that it might not attract the notice of any of the police.

He found himself in an enormously large apartment, which was more than a third filled with goods of various descriptions.

The windows of the warehouse were covered with dust and dirt, and the place was in comparative darkness.

Peace carried no dark lantern with him on this expedition; but he had provided himself with a box of silent lucifers, which were warranted to “ignite only on the box.”

He struck one of these, and was about to take his way up the stairs to make an inspection of the upper portions of the building when, much to his surprise and chagrin, he was confronted by the night watchman, who emerged from a wooden hutch in one of the corners of the warehouse.