ous in the case? I had unquestionably descended
into the wrong area, the right-hand one instead of the left-hand one;
but was I not as unquestionably the relation--the distant
relation--the very distant relation--of the next-door neighbour? I had
been four years absent from his house, and was there anything more
natural than that I should desire to pay my next visit through a
subterranean window? I had appropriated, it is true, a quantity of
silver-plate I had found; but with what other intention could I have
done this than to present it to my very distant relation's daughter,
and reproach her with her carelessness in leaving it next door?
Finally, I was snared, caged, trapped--door and window had been bolted
upon me without any remonstrance on my part--and I was now some
considerable time in the house, unsuspected, yet a prisoner. The
position was serious; but come, suppose the worst, that I was actually
laid hold of as a malefactor, and commanded to give an account of
myself. Well: I was, as aforesaid, a distant relation of the
individual next door. I belonged to nobody in the world, if not to
him; I bore but an indifferent reputation in regard to steadiness; and
after four years' absence in a foreign country, I had returned idle,
penniless, and objectless--just in time to find an area-window open in
the dusk of the evening, and a heap of plate lying behind it, within
view of the street.

This self-examination was not encouraging; the case was decidedly
queer; and as I sat thus pondering in the dark, with the spoon in my
hand, I am quite sure that no malefactor in a dungeon could have
envied my reflections. In fact, the evidence was so dead against me,
that I began to doubt my own innocence. What was I here for if my
intentions had really been honest? Why should I desire to come into
any individual's area-window instead of the door? And how came it that
all this silver-plate had found its way into my pockets? I was angry
as well as terrified: I was judge and criminal in one; but the
instincts of nature got the better of my sense of justice, and I rose
suddenly up, to ascertain whether it was not possible to get from the
window into the street.

As I moved, however, the horrible booty I had in my pockets moved
likewise, appearing to me to shriek, like a score of fiends, 'Police!
police!' and the next instant I heard a quick footstep ascending the
stair. Now was the fateful moment come! I was on my feet; my eyes
glar