Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A NIGHT WITH THE WATCHMAN. A little before nine o'clock on a recent night, I turned from, the comforts of domesticity to go in quest of a new experience. I was attired in thick outer garments, and muffled to the chin; indeed, my
get up
was such as to arouse the curiosity of street passengers. Policemen eyed me suspiciously, and little boys turned round and looked at me in wonderment. An unseasonable chill was in the air, a drizzling rain was falling, and the streets were covered with that peculiar kind of liquid mud which is so detrimental to boots and trousers. Still I went on, past people hurrying home, past obtruding umbrellas and misty shop windows, across the business part of the town, and on into the region of factory chimnies, dinginess, and silence. By and by, I arrived at a pair of iron gates which blocked the entrance to one of our largest factories. After giving a glance at the many-windowed, gloomy building, .as it lay asleep in the rain, and thinking for a moment of the many lives that were closely linked to it, of the bread it had won, and the sorrow it had averted, I knocked loudly at the gates. My knock was immediately answered by
the watch dog’s honest bark, and soon afterwards by the watchman himself, who appeared at a little side door.
Good evening, Sammy.

Good evening, sir; come in. And now I find myself a stranger within the gates, the watchman with his fur cap, his weather-proof wrappings, and his bull’s eye at my side; and his dog sniffing and growling at my heels. I have been introduced to the watchman before, but not to his dog, hence the sniffing and growling. My calves fight shy of my canine friend’s nose for a time, but ere long the unquestionableness of my character and the honesty of my intentions are vouched for to him by his…