ou and your family.'

The turnkey really was proud of him. He would mention him in laudatory
terms to new-comers, when his back was turned. 'You took notice of him,'
he would say, 'that went out of the lodge just now?'

New-comer would probably answer Yes.

'Brought up as a gentleman, he was, if ever a man was. Ed'cated at no
end of expense. Went into the Marshal's house once to try a new piano
for him. Played it, I understand, like one o'clock--beautiful! As to
languages--speaks anything. We've had a Frenchman here in his time, and
it's my opinion he knowed more French than the Frenchman did. We've had
an Italian here in his time, and he shut him up in about half a minute.
You'll find some characters behind other locks, I don't say you won't;
but if you want the top sawyer in such respects as I've mentioned, you
must come to the Marshalsea.'

When his youngest child was eight years old, his wife, who had long been
languishing away--of her own inherent weakness, not that she retained
any greater sensitiveness as to her place of abode than he did--went
upon a visit to a poor friend and old nurse in the country, and died
there. He remained shut up in his room for a fortnight afterwards;
and an attorney's clerk, who was going through the Insolvent Court,
engrossed an address of condolence to him, which looked like a Lease,
and which all the prisoners signed.

When he appeared again he was greyer (he had soon begun to turn grey);
and the turnkey noticed that his hands went often to his trembling lips
again, as they had used to do when he first came in.

But he got pretty well over it in a month or two; and in the meantime
the children played about the yard as regularly as ever, but in black.

Then Mrs Bangham, long popular medium of communication with the outer
world, began to be infirm, and to be found oftener than usual comatose
on pavements, with her basket of purchases spilt, and the change of her
clients ninepence short. His son began to supersede Mrs Bangham, and
to execute commissions in a knowing manner, and to be of the prison
prisonous, of the streets streety.

Time went on, and the turnkey began to fail. His chest swelled, and his
legs got weak, and he was short of breath. The well-worn wooden stool
was 'beyond him,' he complained. He sat in an arm-chair with a cushion,
and sometimes wheezed so, for minutes together, that he couldn't turn
the key. When he was overpowered by these fits, the debtor often tu