1
The Bag of Diamonds, by George Manville Fenn
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bag of Diamonds, by George Manville Fenn This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Bag of Diamonds
Author: George Manville Fenn
Release Date: March 19, 2008 [EBook #24871]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAG OF DIAMONDS ***
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
The Bag of Diamonds
CHAPTER ONE.
IN A FOG.
"Ugh! what a night! And I used to grumble about Hogley Marsh! Why, it's like living in a drain!"
Ramillies Street, W.C., was certainly not attractive at twelve o'clock on that December night, for it had been snowing in the early part of the evening; that snow was suffering from a fall of blacks: and as evil communications corrupt good manners, the evil communication of the London soot was corrupting the good manners of the heavenly snow, which had become smirched by the town's embrace, and was sorrowfully weeping itself away in tears beneath a sky--
No, there was not any sky. For four days there had not been a breath of air to dissipate the heavy mist, and into this mist the smoke of a million chimneys had rolled, mingled, and settled down in the streets in one horrible yellowish-black mirk.
There were gas lamps in Ramillies Street--here