At noon the next day, the clever ghost and Young Master Mei went out to do their old business, and the old camel took the opportunity to give a long speech to Yongchang, denouncing the monstrous crimes of ingratitude.

He clearly showed that Yongchang's sin was not trivial, and he couldn't bear to leave behind a group of friends who always remembered him, and besides, everyone caused so much trouble and spent so much money to get him back, and he was bent on escaping.

The old camel emphasized that he had taken in and treated Yongchang well, and that if he hadn't helped him in time, Yongchang might have starved to death. He recounted the tragic and touching story of a young man who, out of compassion, helped him in similar circumstances, but it turned out that the young man had betrayed his trust and tried to report to the police, and one morning he was tragically hanged in the old town.

The old camel made no secret of his involvement in the tragedy, but lamented with tears that because of the obstinate and treacherous behavior of the young man mentioned earlier, others had to report him to the patrol house and sacrifice him.

The old camel concludes his speech with a rather disgusting picture of the discomfort of hanging. He was polite and friendly in expressing his innumerable and ardent hopes, and he was not willing to let Yongchang suffer such an unpleasant disposition unless he was forced to do so.

Xiao Yongchang listened to the old camel's words, and vaguely heard the insidious and vicious threat revealed in it, and his blood cooled down. He had already experienced that when the innocent and the guilty were accidentally intertwined, even the patrol room was likely to confuse it. The old camel has a lot of plans on how to get rid of those who know too much or can't hide too much, and he has indeed designed and implemented such plans more than once.

Yongchang remembered the reason for the quarrel between them, which seemed to be related to a similar conspiracy in the past.

He looked up timidly, not wanting to meet the sharp gaze of the old camel, and he realized that the cautious old gentleman was neither blind nor uninterested in his pale face and trembling limbs.

The old camel smiled disgustingly, patted Yongchang on the head, and said that as long as he didn't make noise and concentrated on his work, they could still be very good friends. With that, he put on his hat and wrapped himself in a patched coat, locked the door with his hand, and went out.

In this way, for a whole day, and for several days that followed, from early morning to midnight, Yongchang did not see a single figure. During this long time, he was accompanied only by his own imagination. He could never forget those kind friends, who must have seen themselves as something else a long time ago, and it was sad to think that such a thing was really sad.

After about a week, the old camel no longer locked the door, and he was free to walk around the house as he pleased.

It's a very filthy place. Several of the rooms upstairs are fitted with tall wooden mantels and doors, with panelled walls and sidings embedded into the ceiling. Deserted, these things have accumulated dust and become dull, but they are decorated in a variety of ways.

On the basis of all these signs, Yongchang concluded that long ago, before the old Jewish man was born, the house belonged to some people in a better situation, and perhaps once it was once splendid, though now it was full of desolation.

In the corners of the walls and ceilings, spiders have already set up their webs. Sometimes, Yongchang walked into a room and saw rats scurrying around the floor and running back to the hole in panic.

Other than that, the house could no longer see or hear the sound of anything alive. Many times, when it was dark, he wandered room by room, and when he was tired, he curled up in the corner of the corridor near the door, hoping to be as close as possible to the flesh and blood, and he stayed there, listening to the sounds outside, counting the time, until the old camel or the boys returned.

The window panels in all the rooms were rotting day by day, and they were all closed airtightly, and the horizontal bars of the window panels were firmly nailed into the wooden trough with screws. The only light slipped through the round holes in the roof, making the room even darker, filled with strange shadows. On the top floor there was a rear window, no window panels, and the fence above was rusty.

Yongchang often looked out with a wistful face, and looked at it for hours, but he could not distinguish anything but a large patch of uneven, densely layered roofs, dark chimneys, and spires of gables.

Indeed, a head with unkempt hair could occasionally be seen popping out of the low roof wall of a house in the distance, but it quickly disappeared in a flash. Yongchang's lookout window was nailed, and with years of rain and smoke, he could at best distinguish the shapes of various things outside, and as for finding a way for others to see him or hear his voice, it was as if he were staying in the dome of a church.

One afternoon, when the clever ghost and Young Master Mei were both going out at night, he actually admired his face and ordered Yongchang to help him dress up.

Yongchang was really flattered to see that he could be useful, and he finally had a few faces around him, even if he didn't look kind, it was enough for him to be happy. Moreover, he was very eager to impress the few people around him by doing things honestly, and he had no objection to this proposal, and immediately expressed his willingness to serve, and the clever ghost sat down on the table so that he could put his boots on one of Yongchang's legs, and he knelt down on the floor to shine his shoes.

A man who sits down at the table in a very comfortable position, smokes a pipe, and casually swings one leg to and fro, and lets someone shine his shoes for himself, saves him the trouble of taking them off as before, and avoids the estimated pain of putting them on again, so as not to interrupt his thoughts, and a rational animal may experience this leisurely feeling at such a time, or the mellow tobacco makes the clever ghost feel relaxed, or the warm old wine calms his mental activity, Anyway, at the moment he is obviously full of a romantic and enthusiastic taste, which is quite inconsistent with his nature.

He glanced down at Yongchang with a thoughtful look. Then he raised his head again, sighed softly, half distracted and half said to Young Master Mei: "It's a pity, he didn't do our job. ”

Young Master Mei said, "He doesn't know what to do." ”

The clever ghost sighed again, and took up his pipe, and the two of them swallowed the clouds and mist, and for a moment they were silent.

"You probably don't even know what's going on with pickpocketing, do you?" The clever ghost asked sadly.

"I understand this," Yongchang replied, looking up, "it's small—you're one, right?" Yongchang said, stopping the conversation.

"Yes," replied the clever ghost, "I don't delight anything else." He expressed his feelings, pushed his hat up vigorously, and glared at Young Master Mei, as if he wanted to welcome him to express his views to the contrary.

"yes," repeated the clever ghost, "the big ones are all thieves, and right down to the dog, it's the most slippery of our gang." ”

"It's also the one with the strongest mouth." Young Master Mei added.

"Even in the patrol house, it will not bark, for fear that trouble will fall on it, yes, just tie it up, let it stay there for two weeks, and if you don't give it anything to eat, it won't say anything." The clever ghost said.

"Not really." Young Master Mei agreed.

"This dog is weird. When it encounters people laughing or singing, it never puts on a fierce look. "When I hear the violin, it never roars. It's not a family dog, and it never hates. Oh, no. ”

"What a good buddy." The clever ghost said.

This sentence was just to praise this beast for his ability, but Young Master Mei didn't know it.

"Come on, come on," the clever ghost pulled back the topic to the side, out of professional care, which always dictated his words and actions. "Anyway, it has nothing to do with this little doll."

"But isn't it," said the clever ghost, "Yongchang, why don't you worship the old camel as a teacher?" ”

"Don't want to get rich anytime soon?" The Clever grinned and added.

"If you have money, you can be a good person." The clever man is rambling.

"I don't like this kind of thing," Yongchang replied timidly, "if only they let me go, I—I—would love to go." ”

"The old camel doesn't want to." Charlie replied.

Yongchang knew this all too well, however, he realized that revealing his thoughts more clearly might lead to trouble, so he sighed and continued to shine his shoes.

"Go," cried the clever ghost, "hey, where is your ambition?" Don't you have a little bit of self-esteem? Still want to go to your friends? ”

"Oh, it's really boring," said Young Master Mei, taking out two or three silk handkerchiefs from his pocket and throwing them into the closet. "That's boring, really."

"I can't do such a thing." The clever ghost said with a look of haughty contempt.

"You can also leave your friends behind," Yongchang said with a wry smile, "and let them be punished for what you have done." ”

"Well," the clever man shook his pipe, "it's all about the old camel, and the police know that we're eating together, and if we're unlucky, he'll be in trouble, right?" ”

Young Master Mei nodded approvingly, and was about to speak, when the scene of Yongchang running all the way suddenly appeared in his mind last time, and suddenly the smoke and laughter he had just inhaled were entangled, and it went straight to his head and down into his throat, so that he coughed and stomped his feet again, and tossed for about five minutes.

"Look," the clever ghost pulled out a large handful of money, all copper plates. "That's what a happy day is. Who cares where it came from? Well, then, there's a lot of money in those places. Do you want it, don't? Yo, you little fool. ”

"I don't understand what that means." Yongchang replied.