By this Tomlinson proposed to escape; for to the pipe which reached from the door to the wall, in a slanting and easy direction, there was a sort of skirting-board; and a dexterous and nimble man might readily, by the help of this board, convey himself along the pipe, until the progress of that useful conductor (which was happily very brief) was stopped by the summit of the wall, where it found a sequel in another pipe, that descended to the ground on the opposite side of the wall.
Now, on this opposite side was the garden of the prison; in this garden was a watchman, and this watchman was the hobgoblin of Tomlinson's scheme,--"For suppose us safe in the garden," said he, "what shall we do with this confounded fellow ?" "But that is not all," added Paul; "for even were there no watchman, there is a terrible wall, which I noted especially last week, when we were set to work in the garden, and which has no pipe, save a perpendicular one, that a man must have the legs of a fly to be able to climb!" "Nonsense!" returned Tomlinson; "I will show you how to climb the stubbornest wall in Christendom, if one has but the coast clear.

It is the watchman, the watchman, we must--" "What ?" asked Paul, observing his comrade did not conclude the sentence.
It was some time before the sage Augustus replied; he then said in a musing tone,-- "I have been thinking, Paul, whether it would be consistent with virtue, and that strict code of morals by which all my actions are regulated, to--slay the watchman!" "Good heavens!" cried Paul, horror-stricken.
"And I have decided," continued Augustus, solemnly, without regard to the exclamation, "that the action would be perfectly justifiable!" "Villain!" exclaimed Paul, recoiling to the other end of the stone box--for it was night--in which they were cooped.
"But," pursued Augustus, who seemed soliloquizing, and whose voice, sounding calm and thoughtful, like Young's in the famous monologue in "Hamlet," denoted that he heeded not the uncourteous interruption,--"but opinion does not always influence conduct; and although it may be virtuous to murder the watchman, I have not the heart to do it.

I trust in my future history I shall not by discerning moralists be too severely censured for a weakness for which my physical temperament is alone to blame!" Despite the turn of the soliloquy, it was a long time before Paul could be reconciled to further conversation with Augustus; and it was only from the belief that the moralist had leaned to the jesting vein that he at length resumed the consultation.
The conspirators did not, however, bring their scheme that night to any ultimate decision.

The next day Augustus, Paul, and some others of the company were set to work in the garden; and Paul then observed that his friend, wheeling a barrow close by the spot where the watchman stood, overturned its contents.

The watchman was good-natured enough to assist him in refilling the barrow; and Tomlinson profited so well by the occasion that that night he informed Paul that they would have nothing to dread from the watchman's vigilance.