confidence; these three were in fact in charge of the
premises, although nominally the keyes were given up to my friend whom
we will call Henry. The old man wished his son to be happy, allowed
friends to visit him, there was good wine, put out by the old man in
small quantities from time to time, good food, good attendance, and all
to make things comfortable; but the old man resolutely forbade his son
to be out later than eleven o'clock, and kept him as my mother kept me,
almost without money. I expect that the old servants were told to keep
an eye on the doings of Henry.

The basement was used as store-room for muskets, put into wooden boxes
which stood in long rows upon each other like coffins. It was a large
place and originally only went under the factory, but the old gentleman
gradually as he acquired the adjacent houses, let them, but retained
most of the basements, so that his stores ran not only under the
premises he occupied, but largely under half a dozen other houses of
which he only let the shops and upper portions. On four sides this large
basement had glimpses of light let into it, by gratings in the footways
of the streets.

At one end and on the principal street was a row of windows, beneath
what was then a first class linen-draper's shop--first class I mean for
the East-End--a large place for those days, and always full. Women used
to stand by dozens at a time, looking into the shop windows which were
of large plate-glass--a great novelty in those days--people waiting for
omnibusses used also to stand up against the shop.

Henry and I were old school friends, I had seen and felt his cock, he
mine; I had not been with him an hour before he said, "When the workmen
go to dinner, I will show you more legs than your ever saw in your
life." "Girls?" said I. "Yes, I saw up above the garters of a couple
of dozen yesterday in an hour." "Could you see their cunts?" "I did not
quite, but nearly of one," said he. I thought he was bragging, and was
glad when twelve o'clock came.

At that hour down we went, through the basement stored with muskets;
it seemed dark as we entered, but soon we saw streams of light coming
through the windows at the end; they had not been cleaned for years. We
rubbed the glass and looked up. Above us was a flock of women's legs
of all sizes and shapes flashing before us, thick and thin in wonderful
variety. We could see them by looking up, it being bright above; but
dark and dusty bel