Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/220

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190
PAUL CLIFFORD.

this watchman was the hobgoblin of Tomlinson's scheme; "for, suppose us safe in the garden," said he, "what shall we do with this confounded fellow?"

"But that is not all," added Paul, "for even were there no watchman, there is a terrible wall, which I noted especially last week, when we were set to work in the garden, and which has no pipe, save a perpendicular one, that a man must have the legs of a fly to be able to climb!"

"Nonsense!" returned Tomlinson: "I will show you how to climb the stubbornest wall in Christendom, if one has but the coast clear: it is the watchman—the watchman, we must——"

"What?" asked Paul, observing his comrade did not conclude the sentence.

It was some time before the sage Augustus replied; he then said, in a musing tone—

"I have been thinking, Paul, whether it would be consistent with virtue, and that strict code of morals by which all my actions are regulated, to—slay the watchman!"

"Good heavens!" cried Paul, horror-stricken.

"And I have decided," continued Augustus