The
window was small and dirty; the air muddy with tobacco-smoke, and
inflamed with whiskey. Singing and the clang of glasses was resounding
from the next room, together with peals of coarse laughter, and from
that on the other side, the high tones and hard swearing, and the
emphatic slapping of a heavy hand upon the table, indicating a rising
quarrel, were heard. From one door through another, across the narrow
floor on which Mr. Dangerfield stood, every now and then lounged some
neglected, dirty, dissipated looking inmate of these unwholesome
precincts. In fact, Surgeon Dillon's present residence was in that
diversorium pecatorum, the Four Courts Marshalsea in Molesworth-court.
As these gentlemen shuffled or swaggered through, they generally nodded,
winked, grunted, or otherwise saluted the medical gentleman, and stared
at his visitor. For as the writer of the Harleian tract--I forget its
name--pleasantly observes:--'In gaol they are no proud men, but will be
quickly acquainted without ceremony.'
Mr. Dangerfield stood erect; all his appointments were natty, and his
dress, though quiet, rich in material, and there was that air of
reserve, and decision, and command about him, which suggests money, an
article held much in esteem in that retreat.
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