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

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“I knew a corner in a tap-room of a public-house resorted to by cadgers which was called the dead man’s corner, because numbers of decayed beggars had made it their sleeping place, and in that spot one had breathed his last. The seat was frequently at a premium among aged beggars.”

“Ah, I say, draw it mild, old man,” said several voices.

“It’s a fact,” returned the man in the corner.

No two specimen of the human species could form a stranger contrast than the gipsy and the man in the corner, or the “Croaker,” as the former designated him.

The gipsy was full of robust health, of life, and animation.

The “Croaker” resembled more the skeleton of a murdered man than a living subject.

The attenuation of his figure conveyed to the mind the horrible idea of a man just terminating his life under a sentence of starvation.

His eyes resembled dirty gray glass, and a countenance, when unmoved, adorned with features cut in marble, or moulded in cast iron, impressing those who looked on him with the idea that for once nature had made a man without feelings or affections.