CHAPTER XI.
IN WHICH IT APPEARS THAT A MAN MAY POSSESS A DIAMOND AND YET BE VERY HARD PRESSED FOR A DINNER On that fatal Saturday evening, in a hackney-coach, fetched from the Foundling, was I taken from my comfortable house and my dear little wife; whom Mr.Smithers was left to console as he might.

He said that I was compelled to take a journey upon business connected with the office; and my poor Mary made up a little portmanteau of clothes, and tied a comforter round my neck, and bade my companion particularly to keep the coach windows shut: which injunction the grinning wretch promised to obey.

Our journey was not long: it was only a shilling fare to Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, and there I was set down.
The house before which the coach stopped seemed to be only one of half-a- dozen in that street which were used for the same purpose.

No man, be he ever so rich, can pass by those dismal houses, I think, without a shudder.

The front windows are barred, and on the dingy pillar of the door was a shining brass-plate, setting forth that "Aminadab, Officer to the Sheriff of Middlesex," lived therein.