Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/219

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PAUL CLIFFORD.
189

perhaps took their philosophical complexion from the conversations he had lately held with Augustus, and which broke off into the muttered air of

"Why should we quarrel for riches?"

Paul repaired to his customary avocations.

In the third week of our hero's captivity, Tomlinson communicated to him a plan of escape that had occurred to his sagacious brain. In the yard appropriated to the amusements of the gentlemen "misdemeaning," there was a water-pipe that, skirting the wall, passed over a door, through which, every morning, the pious captives passed, in their way to the chapel. By this, Tomlinson proposed to escape; for to the pipe which reached from the door to the wall, in a slanting and easy direction, there was a sort of skirting-board; and a dexterous and nimble man might readily, by the help of this board, convey himself along the pipe, until the progress of that useful conductor (which was happily very brief) was stopped by the summit of the wall, where it found a sequel in another pipe, that descended to the ground on the opposite side of the wall. Now, on this opposite side was the garden of the prison; in this garden was a watchman; and