walls and ceiling of the apartment were of stone; there were
no windows, but a narrow aperture, high up in the wall, admitted the
feeble glimmer of daylight. There was an iron door, and a water-pipe,
and platform on which I lay, and on which reposed several gentlemen of
seedy raiment and unwholesome appearance. The place and the company, as
dimly revealed by the uncertain morning light, inspired me with emotions
of horror; and in my inexperience and ignorance, I said to myself--

"I must leave this place at once. How I came here is a mystery, but it
is certain that I cannot remain."

I arose from my hard couch, and approached the iron door with the
confident expectation of being able to pass out without any difficulty,
for I imagined that I had fallen into one of those cheap and wretched
lodging houses with which the city abounds. (By the way, I may hereafter
have something to say with reference to these cheap lodging-houses. Some
rich development may be made, which will rather astonish the
unsophisticated reader.)

To my surprise, I found that the door could not be opened; and then one
of my fellow-lodgers, who had been observing my movements, exclaimed:

"Are you going to leave us, my lad? Then leave us your card, or a lock
of your hair to remember you by."

"Will you be kind enough to tell me what place this is?" said I.

The man laughed loudly, as he replied--

"Why, don't you know? What an innocent youth you are, to be sure! How
the devil could you come here, without knowing anything about it? But I
suppose that you were drunk, which is a great pity for a boy like you.
Well, not to keep you in suspense, I must inform you that you are in the
_watch-house of the Tombs_!"

This information appalled me. To be in confinement--to be a prisoner--to
be associated with a company of outcasts, thieves and perhaps
murderers--was to me the height of horror. I looked particularly at the
man with whom I had been conversing. He was a savage-looking individual,
with a beard like that of a pirate, and an eye that spoke of blood and
outrage. He was roughly dressed, in a garb that announced him to be a
mariner.

In the course of a conversation that we fell into, he informed me that
he had committed a murder on the preceding evening, and that he expected
to be hung.

"We quarrelled at cards," said he, "and he gave me the lie--whereupon I
drew my death-knife and stabbed him to the heart. He died instantly; the
police rushed