"What time is it?"
"Six o'clock. Your supper, sir."
He looked with disgust at the stale, foul-smelling,
half-cold mess, and turned his head away.
He was feeling bodily ill as well as depressed; and
the sight of the food sickened him.
"You will be ill if you don't eat," said the soldier
hurriedly. "Take a bit of bread, anyway; it'll do you good."
The man spoke with a curious earnestness of
tone, lifting a piece of sodden bread from the plate
and putting it down again. All the conspirator
awoke in the Gadfly; he had guessed at once that
there was something hidden in the bread.
"You can leave it; I'll eat a bit by and by," he
said carelessly. The door was open, and he knew
that the sergeant on the stairs could hear every
word spoken between them.
When the door was locked on him again, and
he had satisfied himself that no one was watching
at the spy-hole, he took up the piece of bread and
carefully crumbled it away. In the middle was
the thing he had expected, a bundle of small files.
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