McLevy Read Online Free

life, and you don’t want pictures of vice. Then, what boots it to describe such women. Their variety is only a combination of traces which are as uniform as the features of
sensuality. Yes, these young women, who were quite familiar to me—Agnes Marshall, Jessie Ronald, Elizabeth Livingstone, Hannah Martin, Julia Shields—were simply representatives of
thousands bearing the same marks,—one, a demure but cunning catcher of hearts and purses; another, a fair and comely living temple, with a Dagon of vice stuck up in it; another, never sober
except when in a police cell, and never silent except when asleep, and scarcely then, for I have heard the cry of her wild spirit as it floated in drunken dreams; and another, the best resetter in
the city, from whom a century of years in prison would not have extorted a Brummagem ring of the value of a glass of whisky. If I force so much of a picture upon you, it is because, as a part of
society, you deserve to know what your laws and usages produce.
    It was not for a little time after I entered that the confusion of tongues ceased. Their spirits had received such an impetus from the effects of the spirituous, that the speed could not be
stopped; and even when the noise was hushed, it was only after the muttering of oaths. Meanwhile, a glance told me I had got into the very heart of the reset-box of Mr Jackson’s fine
jewellery. Finger and ear-rings glittered in the gas-light, and the expensive coats, at the top of the fashion, made Shields and Preger look like gentlemen who had called in from Princes Street to
see the jewelled beauties. I have always had my own way of dealing with such gentry. I took out my musical box, and pulling the string, set it agoing. I have heard of music that drew
stones—mine drew bricks. Shields and Preger fixed their eyes wildly upon me; and the women, who knew nothing of the meaning of M’Levy’s music, first shot out into a yell of
laughter, and then, rising, began, in the madness of their drunkenness, to dance like so many furies, keeping time, so far as they could, to the tune of the instrument. I could account for this
insensibility to danger by no other way than by supposing that they had not previously seen the box, and did not see the consequences that were likely to result from my visit.
    After the hubbub ceased, I addressed my man in the first instance.
    “Patrick,” said I, “I am come to return your box.”
    “It’s not mine,” replied the youth; “I have nothing to do with it.”
    “It’s mine anyhow,” cried the unwary mother, who all this time was looking through the smoke like a tigress. “The spaking thing is mine anyhow, for didn’t me own
Julia get it from a raal gintleman to learn her to sing, and isn’t what’s hers mine?”
    And how much more of this Irish howl I might have heard, I can’t say, if the son had not shot a look into her which brought her to a sense of her imprudence.
    “And it’s not my box afther all, ye vagabond,” she cried, in trying to retreat from her error: “for wasn’t mine an ivory one, and didn’t it play real Irish
tunes? Come here, Julia; is that your box?”
    “No,” said Julia.
    “And wasn’t yours raal ivory?”
    “Yes,” replied the girl.
    “Now, didn’t I tell you, you murtherin’ thief, it wasn’t my box. A way wid you, and never show your ugly face here again among dacent people.”
    The ordinary gabble of all such interviews. I gave a nod, to my assistant, and in a few minutes the constables were at my back.
    “Well,” said I, addressing the men, “you can carry the top-coats on your backs to the office; but as for you, ladies, there are certain finger and ear ornaments about you
which, for fear you lose them, I must take.”
    These few simple words quieted the turmoil in an instant. I have often produced the same effect by a quiet exercise of authority. The boisterousness of vice, with no confidence to support it,
runs back and oppresses the