am
quite ready," he said, "to accede to the customs of the place in which
I unhappily find myself. You have but to name your demands, and I will
satisfy them."

So saying, he drew out his purse, thinking himself at the same time
fortunate that he had retained about him a considerable sum of gold. The
Captain remarked its width, depth, its extension, and depression, with
an involuntary smile, which had scarce contorted his hanging under-lip,
and the wiry and greasy moustache which thatched the upper, when it was
checked by the recollection that there were regulations which set bounds
to his rapacity, and prevented him from pouncing on his prey like a
kite, and swooping it all off at once.

This chilling reflection produced the following sullen reply to
Peveril:--"There were sundry rates. Gentlemen must choose for
themselves. He asked nothing but his fees. But civility," he muttered,
"must be paid for."

"And shall, if I can have it for payment," said Peveril; "but the price,
my good sir, the price?"

He spoke with some degree of scorn, which he was the less anxious to
repress, that he saw, even in this jail, his purse gave him an indirect
but powerful influence over his jailer.

The Captain seemed to feel the same; for, as he spoke, he plucked from
his head, almost involuntarily, a sort of scalded fur-cap, which served
it for covering. But his fingers revolting from so unusual an act of
complaisance, began to indemnify themselves by scratching his grizzly
shock-head, as he muttered, in a tone resembling the softened growling
of a mastiff when he has ceased to bay the intruder who shows no fear of
him,--"There are different rates. There is the Little Ease, for common
fees of the crown--rather dark, and the common sewer runs below it;
and some gentlemen object to the company, who are chiefly padders and
michers. Then the Master's side--the garnish came to one piece--and none
lay stowed there but who were in for murder at the least."

"Name your highest price, sir, and take it," was Julian's concise reply.

"Three pieces for the Knight's ward," answered the governor of this
terrestrial Tartarus.

"Take five, and place me with Sir Geoffrey," was again Julian's answer,
throwing down the money upon the desk before him.

"Sir Geoffrey?--Hum!--ay, Sir Geoffrey," said the jailer, as if
meditating what he ought to do. "Well, many a man has paid money to see
Sir Geoffrey--Scarce so much as you have, though. But then you