V.
THE CLOAKED WOMAN.
"Well," I said, as I walked on, "this is a charming adventure and
conveys a tolerably good idea of the city of Richmond, after dark, in
the year 1864. Our friend Blocque is garroted, and robbed of his
'honest earnings,' at one fell swoop by a footpad! The worthy citizen
is waylaid; his pockets rifled; his life desolated. All the proceeds of
a life of virtuous industry have disappeared. Terrible condition of
things!--awful times when a good citizen can not go home to his modest
supper of canvas-backs and champagne, without being robbed by----his
brother robber!"
Indulging in these reflections, not unaccompanied with smiles, I
continued my way, with little fear, myself, of pickpockets or
garroters. Those gentry were intelligent. They were never known to
attack people with gray coats--they knew better! They attacked the
black coats, in the pockets of which they suspected the presence of
greenbacks and valuable papers; never the gray coats, where they would
find only a frayed "leave of absence" for their pains!
I thus banished the whole affair from my mind; but it had aroused and
excited me. I did not feel at all sleepy; and finding, by a glance at
my watch beneath a lamp, that it was only half past ten, I resolved to
go and ask after the health of my friend, Mr.
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