But there are iron bars to all the windows.

When it is fair, some of us can stroll outside that very high fence.

But I never see much life in those groups I sometimes meet;--and then the careful man watches them so closely! How I remember that sad company I used to pass on fine mornings, when I was a schoolboy!--B., with his arms full of yellow weeds,--ore from the gold mines which he discovered long before we heard of California,--Y., born to millions, crazed by too much plum-cake, (the boys said,) dogged, explosive,--made a Polyphemus of my weak-eyed schoolmaster, by a vicious flirt with a stick,--( the multi-millonnaires sent him a trifle, it was said, to buy another eye with; but boys are jealous of rich folks, and I don't doubt the good people made him easy for life,)--how I remember them all! I recollect, as all do, the story of the Hall of Eblis, in "Vathek," and how each shape, as it lifted its hand from its breast, showed its heart,--a burning coal.

The real Hall of Eblis stands on yonder summit.

Go there on the next visiting-day, and ask that figure crouched in the corner, huddled up like those Indian mummies and skeletons found buried in the sitting posture, to lift its hand,--look upon its heart, and behold, not fire, but ashes .-- No, I must not think of such an ending! Dying would be a much more gentlemanly way of meeting the difficulty.