Peter Ibbetson, Vol. 2

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Excerpt from Peter Ibbetson, Vol. 2 of 2As I got near to the avenue gate, instead of the school on my left there was a prison and at the door a little thick-set jailer, three feet high and much deformed, and a little deformed jaileress no bigger than himself, were cunningly watching me out of the corners of their eyes, and toothlessly smiling. Presently they began to waltz together to an old, familiar tune, with their enormous keys dangling at their sides and they looked so funny that I laughed and applauded. But soon I perceived that their crooked faces were not really funny indeed, they were fatal and terrible in the extreme, and I was soon conscious that these deadly dwarfs were trying to waltz between me and the avenue gate for which I was bound - to cut me off, that they might run me into the prison, where it was their custom to hang people of a Monday morning.