ose written language is
a perplexity compared with which Greek is a relaxation and Sanscrit a
positive amusement;--who deal in adjectives, and know their precise
value, and how to administer them, as an apothecary knows the drugs that
are boxed and bottled on his shelves;--who are less men than parts of an
enormous mill grinding out grist to be branned and bolted in the
editorial rooms, made into food in the printing office and press vault,
and served up hot for the public's breakfast next morning.

Clever, witty, insatiable fellows they, for whom a planet ought to be
set apart, where all the murders are wrapped in impenetrable mystery,
and the smallest railroad accidents are frightful catastrophes.

The east side of the room, where the dead body had been found, was
preserved inviolate from the broom, mop, and other touch, until the
inquest was over. The strange machine stood in its accustomed place,
flanked by the screen. It had been extensively handled and looked at,
and passed for a new kind of clock. Two large weights (which had fallen
to the floor) and the interplaying cogwheels gave force to that
conjecture.

A large purple spot on the floor showed where the old man's life had
ebbed away. Close by this spot, precisely where it had been picked up,
lay the long oaken club with the iron tip, which, it was supposed, had
done the dreadful deed. There were small splashes and spots on it too.

The fun of the reporters, the chat of the coroner and his friends, the
readings and airy meditations of the jurors, were all suddenly checked
by the appearance of Marcus Wilkeson, escorted by two police officers,
and Messrs. Overtop and Maltboy, Patching and Tiffles. All five had
passed the night in the station house--Messrs. Patching and Tiffles from
compulsion, as witnesses, and possible accomplices, and Overtop and
Maltboy as guides, philosophers, and friends. All looked seedy and
criminal, as if there were something in the atmosphere of station houses
to give a man the semblance of a vagabond and an outcast. Marcus
Wilkeson was very pale, and, when he looked across the room, as he did
upon his entrance, by a singular impulse, and saw the great blood mark
and the club on the floor, he trembled with emotion.

The keen eyes of the coroner caught these signs, and he immediately
brought in a mental verdict of "guilty." Some of the jury observed the
same signs, and thought them suspicious. The reporters looked upon
Marcus Wilkes