In the first place, there was the chance that Alicia might find some secret means of communicating with me if I remained where I was.  In the second place, the doctor would, in all probability, have occasion to write to his daughter, or would be likely to receive letters from her; and, if I quieted all suspicion on my account, by docile behavior, and kept my eyes sharply on the lookout, I might find opportunities of surprising the secrets of his writing-desk.  I felt that I need be under no restraints of honor with a man who was keeping me a prisoner, and who had made an accomplice of me by threatening my life.  Accordingly, while resolving to show outwardly an amiable submission to my fate, I determined at the same time to keep secretly on the watch, and to take the very first chance of outwitting Doctor Dulcifer that might happen to present itself.  When we next met I was perfectly civil to him.  He was too well-bred a man not to match me on the common ground of courtesy.

“Permit me to congratulate you,” he said, “on the improvement in your manner and appearance.  You are beginning well, Francis.  Go on as you have begun.”

CHAPTER X.

MY first few days’ experience in my new position satisfied me that Doctor Dulcifer preserved himself from betrayal by a system of surveillance worthy of the very worst days of the Holy Inquisition itself.

No man of us ever knew that he was not being overlooked at home, or followed when he went out, by another man.  Peepholes were pierced in the wall of each room, and we were never certain, while at work, whose eye was observing, or whose ear was listening in secret.  Though we all lived together, we were probably the least united body of men ever assembled under one roof.  By way of effectually keeping up the want of union between us, we were not all trusted alike.  I soon discovered that Old File and Young File were much further advanced in the doctor’s confidence than Mill, Screw, or myself.  There was a locked-up room, and a continually-closed door shutting off a back staircase, of both of which Old File and Young File possessed keys that were never so much as trusted in the possession of the rest of us.  There was also a trap-door in the floor of the principal workroom, the use of which was known to nobody but the doctor and his two privileged men.  If we had not been all nearly on an equality in the matter of wages, these distinctions would have made bad blood among us.  As it was, nobody having reason to complain of unjustly-diminished wages, nobody cared about any preferences in which profit was not involved.

The doctor must have gained a great deal of money by his skill as a coiner.  His profits in business could never have averaged less than five hundred per cent; and, to do him justice, he was really a generous as well as a rich master.

Even I, as a new hand, was, in fair proportion, as well paid by the week as the rest.