No man of us ever knew that he was not being overlooked at home,
or followed when he went out, by another man. Peepholes were

pierced in the wall of each room, and we were never certain,
while at work, whose eye was observing, or whose ear was

listening in secret. Though we all lived together, we were
probably the least united body of men ever assembled under one

roof. By way of effectually keeping up the want of union between
us, we were not all trusted alike. I soon discovered that Old

File and Young File were much further advanced in the doctor's
confidence than Mill, Screw, or myself. There was a locked-up

room, and a continually-closed door shutting off a back
staircase, of both of which Old File and Young File possessed

keys that were never so much as trusted in the possession of the
rest of us. There was also a trap-door in the floor of the

principal workroom, the use of which was known to nobody but the
doctor and his two privileged men. If we had not been all nearly

on an equality in the matter of wages, these distinctions would
have made bad blood among us. As it was, nobody having reason to

complain of unjustly-diminished wages, nobody cared about any
preferences in which profit was not involved.

The doctor must have gained a great deal of money by his skill as
a coiner. His profits in business could never have averaged less

than five hundred per cent; and, to do him justice, he was really
a generous as well as a rich master.

Even I, as a new hand, was, in fair proportion, as well paid by
the week as the rest.

We, of course, had nothing to do with the passing of false
money--we only manufactured it (sometimes at the rate of four

hundred pounds' worth in a week); and left its circulation to be
managed by our customers in London and the large towns. Whatever

we paid for in Barkingham was paid for in the genuine Mint
coinage. I used often to compare my own true guineas, half-crowns

and shillings with our imitations under the doctor's supervision,
and was always amazed at the resemblance. Our scientific chief

had discovered a process something like what is called
electrotyping nowadays, as I imagine. He was very proud of this;

but he was prouder still of the ring of his metal, and with
reason: it must have been a nice ear indeed that could discover

the false tones in the doctor's coinage.
If I had been the most scrupulous man in the world, I must still

have received my wages, for the very necessary purpose of not
appearing to distinguish myself invidiously from my

fellow-workmen. Upon the whole, I got on well with them. Old File
and I struck up quite a friendship. Young File and Mill worked

harmoniously with me, but Screw and I (as I had foreboded)
quarreled.

This last man was not on good terms with his fellows, and had
less of the doctor's confidence than any of the rest of us.

Naturally not of a sweet temper, his isolated position in the
house had soured him, and he rashly attempted to vent his

ill-humor on me, as a newcomer. For some days I bore with him
patiently; but at last he got the better of my powers of

endurance; and I gave him a lesson in manners, one day, on the
educational system of Gentleman Jones. He did not return the

blow, or complain to the doctor; he only looked at me wickedly,
and said: "I'll be even with you for that, some of these days." I

soon forgot the words and the look.
With Old File, as I have said, I became quite friendly. Excepting

the secrets of our prison-house, he was ready enough to talk on
subjects about which I was curious.

He had known his present master as a young man, and was perfectly
familiar with all the events of his career. From various

conversations, at odds and ends of spare time, I discovered that
Doctor Dulcifer had begun life as a footman in a gentleman's

family; that his young mistress had eloped with him, taking away
with her every article of value that was her own personal

property, in the shape of jewelry and dresses; that they had
lived upon the sale of these things for some time; and that the

husband, when the wife's means were exhausted, had turned
strolling-player for a year or two. Abandoning that pursuit, he

had next become a quack-doctor, first in a resident, then in a
vagabond capacity--taking a medical degree of his own conferring,

and holding to it as a good traveling title for the rest of his
life. From the selling of quack medicines he had proceeded to the

adulterating of foreign wines, varied by lucrative evening
occupation in the Paris gambling houses. On returning to his

native land, he still continued to turn his chemical knowledge to
account, by giving his services to that particular branch of our

commercial industry which is commonly described as the
adulteration of commodities; and from this he had gradually risen

to the more refinedpursuit of adulterating gold and silver--or,
to use the common phrase again, making bad money.

According to Old File's statement, though Doctor Dulcifer had
never actually ill-used his wife, he had never lived on kind

terms with her: the main cause of the estrangement between them,
in later years, being Mrs. Dulcifer's resoluteresistance to her

husband's plans for emerging from poverty, by the simple process
of coining his own money. The poor woman still held fast by some

of the principles imparted to her in happier days; and she was
devotedly fond of her daughter. At the time of her sudden death,

she was secretly making arrangements to leave the doctor, and
find a refuge for herself and her child in a foreign country,

under the care of the one friend of her family who had not cast
her off. Questioning my informant about Alicia next, I found that

he knew very little about her relations with her father in later
years. That she must long since have discovered him to be not

quite so respectable a man as he looked, and that she might
suspect something wrong was going on in the house at the present

time, were, in Old File's opinion, matters of certainty; but that
she knew anything positively on the subject of her father's

occupations, he seemed to doubt. The doctor was not the sort of
man to give his daughter, or any other woman, the slightest

chance of surprising his secrets.
These particulars I gleaned during one long month of servitude

and imprisonment in the fatal red-brick house.
During all that time not the slightest intimation reached me of

Alicia's whereabouts. Had she forgotten me? I could not believe
it. Unless the dear brown eyes were the falsest hypocrites in the

world, it was impossible that she should have forgotten me. Was
she watched? Were all means of communicating with me, even in

secret, carefully removed from her? I looked oftener and oftener
into the doctor's study as those questions occurred to me; but he

never quitted it without locking the writing-desk first--he never
left any papers scattered on the table, and he was never absent

from the room at any special times and seasons that could be
previously calculated upon. I began to despair, and to feel in my

lonely moments a yearning to renew that childish experiment of
crying, which I have already adverted to, in the way of

confession. Moralists will be glad to hear that I really suffered
acute mentalmisery at this time of my life. My state of

depression would have gratified the most exacting of Methodists;
and my penitent face would have made my fortune if I could only

have been exhibited by a reformatory association on the platform
of Exeter Hall.

How much longer was this to last? Whither should I turn my steps
when I regained my freedom? In what direction throughout all