'
'Pardon me,' said Mr. Tartar.
With the greatest delicacy he shifted his ground to the windows
again, and asked if he could look at one of them. On Neville's
opening it, he immediately sprang out, as if he were going aloft
with a whole watch in an emergency, and were setting a bright
example.
'For Heaven's sake,' cried Neville, 'don't do that! Where are you
going Mr. Tartar? You'll be dashed to pieces!'
'All well!' said the Lieutenant, coolly looking about him on the
housetop. 'All taut and trim here. Those lines and stays shall be
rigged before you turn out in the morning. May I take this short
cut home, and say good-night?'
'Mr. Tartar!' urged Neville. 'Pray! It makes me giddy to see
you!'
But Mr. Tartar, with a wave of his hand and the deftness of a cat,
had already dipped through his scuttle of scarlet runners without
breaking a leaf, and 'gone below.'
Mr. Grewgious, his bedroom window-blind held aside with his hand,
happened at the moment to have Neville's chambers under his eye for
the last time that night. Fortunately his eye was on the front of
the house and not the back, or this remarkable appearance and
disappearance might have broken his rest as a phenomenon. But Mr.
Grewgious seeing nothing there, not even a light in the windows,
his gaze wandered from the windows to the stars, as if he would
have read in them something that was hidden from him. Many of us
would, if we could; but none of us so much as know our letters in
the stars yet - or seem likely to do it, in this state of existence
- and few languages can be read until their alphabets are mastered.
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