The works of Charles Dickens. Household ed. [22 vols. Orig. issued in monthly parts].

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Page iii - Maypole — by which term from henceforth is meant the house, and not its sign — the Maypole was an old building, with more gable-ends than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny day; huge zigzag chimneys, out of which it seemed as though even smoke could not choose but come in more than naturally fantastic shapes, imparted to it in its tortuous progress ; and vast stables, gloomy, ruinous, and empty.
Page 257 - The gutters of the street, and every crack and fissure in the stones, ran with scorching spirit, which being dammed up by busy hands, overflowed the road and pavement, and formed a great pool, into which the people dropped down dead by dozens.
Page 257 - ... and drank until they died. While some stooped with their lips to the brink and never raised their heads again, others sprang up from their fiery draught, and danced, half in a mad triumph, and half in the agony of suffocation until they fell, and steeped their corpses in the liquor that had killed them.

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