My father frowned.  “And yet this man, Mr. Knox, is an anointed king.”

“Of Corsica!” Mr. Knox shrugged his shoulders.  “You may take my word for it, he’s an anointed actor.”

“One can visit him, I suppose?”

“At the most the turnkey will expect five shillings.  Oh dear me yes!  For a crowned head he’s accessible.”

My father took me by the arm.  “Come along, then, child.  And you, Gervase, get your business through with Mr. Knox and follow us, if you can, in half an hour.  You”—­he turned to Billy Priske—­“had best come with us.  ’Tis possible I may need you all for witnesses.”

He walked me out and downstairs and through the lodge gateway; and so under Temple Bar again and down Fleet Street through the throng; till near the foot of it, turning up a side street out of the noise, we found ourselves in face of a gateway which could only belong to a prison.  The gate itself stood open, but the passage led to an iron-barred door, and in the passage—­which was cool but indescribably noisome—­a couple of children were playing marbles, with half a dozen turnkeys looking on and (I believe) betting on the game.

My father sniffed the air in the passage and turned to me.

“Gaol-fever,” he announced.  “Please God, child, we won’t be in it long.”

He rescued Billy from the two urchins who had dropped their game to pinch his calves, and addressed a word to one of the turnkeys, at the same time passing a coin.  The fellow looked at it and touched his hat.

“Second court, first floor, number thirty-seven.”  He opened a wicket in the gate.  “This way, please, and sharp to the left.”

The narrow court into which we descended by a short flight of steps was, as I remember, empty; but passing under an archway and through a kind of tunnel we entered a larger one crowded with men, some gathered in groups, others pacing singly and dejectedly, the most of them slowly too, with bowed heads, but three or four with fierce strides as if in haste to keep an appointment.  One of them, coming abreast of us as the turnkey led us off to a staircase on the left, halted, drew himself up, stared at us for a moment with vacant eyes, and hurried by; yet before we mounted the stairs I saw him reach the farther wall, wheel, and come as hastily striding back.

The stairway led to a filthy corridor, pierced on the left with a row of tiny windows looking on the first and empty courtyard; and on the right with a close row of doors, the most of which stood open and gave glimpses of foul disordered beds, broken meats, and barred windows crusted with London grime.  The smell was pestilential.  Our turnkey rapped on one of the closed doors, and half-flung, half-kicked it open; for a box had been set against it on the inside.

“Visitors for the Baron!” he announced, and stood aside to let us enter.  My father had ordered Billy to wait below.  We two passed in together.