gentleman; though I never see you again, I shall not
forget you."

"Silence there!" cried the officer in charge, as Richard passed out into
the stone passage. "You ought to know our ways better than that,
Balfour."

CHAPTER XXVII.

ATTORNEY AND CLIENT.

In a hall of stone stood a room of glass, and in that room the inmates
of Cross Key Jail were permitted to have access to their legal advisers.
They were not lost sight of by the jealous guardians of the place, one
of whom perambulated the hall throughout the interview; but though he
could see all that passed, he could hear nothing. Mr. Weasel of Plymouth
was very well known at Cross Key as being a frequent visitor to that
transparent apartment, and those prisoners whom he favored with his
attentions were justly held in high estimation by the warders, as
gentlemen who, though in difficulties, had at least some considerable
command of ready money. He was waiting now, with his hat on (which he
always wore, to increase his very limited stature), in this chamber of
audience; and so withered up he looked, and such a sharp, shrunk face he
had, that Richard, seeing him in the glass case, might have thought him
some dried specimen of humanity, not alive at all, had he not chanced to
be in the act of taking snuff; and even that was ghostly too, since it
produced the pantomimic action of sneezing without its accompanying
sound.

"Mr. Richard Yorke, I believe?" said he, as soon as they were shut up
within the walls of glass, "I am glad to make your acquaintance, Sir,
though I wish, for your sake, that it happened in another place. You'll
excuse my not offering you my hand."

Richard drew back his extended arm and turned crimson.

"Don't be offended, Sir," said the lawyer; "but the fact is, the
authorities here don't like it. There are some parties in this place who
employ very queer legal advisers; and in shaking hands, a file or a
gimlet, and a bit of tobacco, are as likely to pass as not. That warder
can see every thing, my dear young Sir; but he can no more hear what we
say than he can understand what a couple of bumble-bees are murmuring
about who are barred up in a double window. We can therefore converse
with one another as much without reserve as we please, or rather"--and
here the little man's eyes twinkled significantly--"as _you_ please.
What I hear from a client in this ridiculous place is never revealed
beyond it, except so far as it may serve his inter