I feared to add a line, and dared not seek a passing word
with him, so carefully was I watched.
I next examined, with the eye of scientific scrutiny, two massive rulers
that lay on my table, one made of maple-wood, and the other of ebony,
and, having selected the first as most available for my purpose,
prepared to commence the most arduous undertaking of my life--the
careful shaping of a wooden key!
I had read somewhere that, during the French Revolution, a young
peasant-girl, by means of such an instrument, had set at large her
lover, or her brother, in _La Vendee;_ having taken with soft wax the
outline of the wards of the lock, in a moment of opportunity.
That day my work began--three times a failure, but at last successful.
With the aid of putty, gradually allowed to harden, I obtained the mould
I desired, in the dead of night, and afterward, whenever privacy, even
for a few minutes, was mine, I drew from my bosom my sacred piece of
sculpture, and worked upon it with knife and chisel alternately, as
devotee never worked on sculptured crucifix. Never shall I forget the
rapture, the ecstasy of that moment, in which, ensconced between my
bed-head and the wall, I slowly turned the key, first thoroughly soaked
in oil, in the morticed wards, and knew, by the slight giving of the
door, that it was unlocked.
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