“You see, sir, this Toddleworth is a harmless creature, always aims to be obliging and civil.  I don’t, sir-I really don’t think he’ll steal.  But one can’t tell what a man will do who is driven to such straits as the poor devils here are.  We rather like Toddleworth at the station, look upon him as rather wanting in the head, and for that reason rather incline to favor him.  I may say we now and then let him ‘tie up’ all night in the station.  And for this he seems very thankful.  I may say,” continues Mr. Fitzgerald, touching the visor of his cap, “that he always repays with kindness any little attention we may extend to him at the station, and at times seems too anxious to make it his home.  We give him a shirt and a few shillings now and then; and when we want to be rid of him we begin to talk about fashionable wives.  He is sure to go then.  Can’t stand such a topic, I assure you, sir, and is sure togo off in a huff when Sergeant Pottle starts it.”

They enter the great door of the bottomless pit; the young missionary hesitates.  His countenance changes, his eyes scan steadily over the scene.  A room some sixty feet by twenty opens to his astonished eyes.  Its black, boarded walls, and bare beams, are enlivened here and there with extravagant pictures of notorious pugilists, show-bills, and illustrated advertisements of lascivious books, in which the murder of an unfortunate woman is the principal feature.  Slippery mud covers the floor.  Mr. Krone sits on an empty whiskey-barrel, his stunted features betraying the hardened avarice of his character.  He smokes his black pipe, folds his arms deliberately, discoursing of the affairs of the nation to two stupefied negroes and one blear-eyed son of the Emerald Isle.  Three uncouth females, with hair hanging matted over their faces, and their features hidden in distortion, stand cooling their bared limbs at a running faucet just inside the door, to the left.  A group of half-naked negroes lie insensible on the floor, to the right.  A little further on two prostrate females, shivering, and reeking of gin, sleep undisturbed by the profanity that is making the very air resound.  “The gin gets a-many of us,” is the mournful cry of many a wasting inebriate.  Mr. Krone, however, will tell you he has no sympathy with such cries.  You arraign, and perhaps punish, the apothecary who sells by mistake his deadly drug.  With a philosophical air, Mr. Krone will tell you he deals out his poison without scruple, fills alms-houses without a pang of remorse, and proves that a politician-maker may do much to degrade society and remain in high favor with his friends of the bench of justice.  On one side of the dungeon-like place stands a rickety old counter, behind which three savage-faced men stand, filling and serving incessant potions of deleterious liquor to the miserable beings, haggard and ragged, crowding to be first served.  Behind the bar, or counter, rises a pyramid of dingy shelves, on which are arranged little painted kegs, labelled, and made bright by the glaring gas-light reflected upon them.  On the opposite side, on rows of slab benches, sit a group of motley beings,—­the young girl and the old man, the negro and the frail white,—­half sleeping, half conscious; all imbibing the stifling draught.