hat he thought was a very high rent. To this hole in the roof there was
no lock,--for a very good reason, there was no door to it. You went up
a ladder, as you would go into a loft. Now, it had often been matter of
much intense cogitation to Beck whether or not he should have a door
to his chamber; and the result of the cogitation was invariably the
same,--he dared not! What should he want with a door,--a door with a
lock to it? For one followed as a consequence to the other. Such a novel
piece of grandeur would be an ostentatious advertisement that he had
something to guard. He could have no pretence for it on the ground that
he was intruded on by neighbours; no step but his own was ever caught
by him ascending that ladder; it led to no other room. All the offices
required for the lodgment he performed himself. His supposed poverty
was a better safeguard than doors of iron. Besides this, a door, if
dangerous, would be superfluous; the moment it was suspected that Beck
had something worth guarding, that moment all the picklocks and skeleton
keys in the neighbourhood would be in a jingle. And a cracksman of high
repute lodged already on the ground-floor. So Beck's treasure, like the
bird's nest, was deposited as much out of sight as his instinct
could contrive; and the locks and bolts of civilized men were equally
dispensed with by bird and Beck.

On a rusty nail the sweep suspended the drab small-clothes, stroked them
down lovingly, and murmured, "They be 's too good for I; I should
like to pop 'em! But vould n't that be a shame? Beck, be n't you be a
hungrateful beast to go for to think of nothin' but the tin, ven your
'art ought to varm with hemotion? I vill vear 'em ven I vaits on him.
Ven he sees his own smalls bringing in the muffins, he will say, 'Beck,
you becomes 'em!'"

Fraught with this noble resolution, the sweep caught up his broom, crept
down the ladder, and with a furtive glance at the door of the room in
which the cracksman lived, let himself out and shambled his way to his
crossing. Grabman, in the mean while, dressed himself with more care
than usual, shaved his beard from a four days' crop, and while seated at
his breakfast, read attentively over the notes which Varney had left to
him, pausing at times to make his own pencil memoranda. He then packed
up such few articles as so moderate a worshipper of the Graces might
require, deposited them in an old blue brief-bag, and this done, he
opened his door,