When the last had left, my possessor produced a bag, into which he thrust me, with a score or more of other articles acquired as I had been acquired; then, locking the door behind him, he descended the stairs and stepped out.
Oh, the delight of that breath of fresh morning air! Even as it struggled in through the crevices and cracks of that old bag, it was like a breath of Paradise, after the vile, pestilential atmosphere of that room! As we went on, I had leisure to observe the company of which I formed one.

What a motley crew we were! There were watches, snuff-boxes, and pencils, bracelets and brooches, handkerchiefs and gloves, studs, pins, and rings--all huddled together higgledy-piggledy.

We none of us spoke to one another, nor inquired whither we were going; we were a sad, spiritless assembly, and to some of us it mattered little what became of us.
Still I could not help wondering if the man in whose possession I and my fellow-prisoners found ourselves was Stumpy's "uncle," referred to by that miserable clay pipe.

If he was, I felt I could not candidly congratulate that youth on his relative.

What he could want with us all I could not imagine.
If I had been the only watch, and if there hadn't been half a dozen scarf-pins, snuff-boxes, and pencils, it would not have been so extraordinary.