Young Heep was a lively child, up to all sorts of tricks, and does not remember the time since he could walk that he was not in some mischief, and, as he remarked, "took to all sorts of deviltry as naturally as a duck to water." As long as his father lived there was not much check on his mischievous propensities, but his stepfather proved to be a severe and stern judge, and brought him to book for every irregularity, thrashing him most unmercifully for each offense. His mother could not have filled her maternal duty very judiciously, judging from the fact that before he was 12 years old she set him to follow and watch his stepfather to the house of a woman of whom she was jealous. The boy possessed great natural abilities, and in good hands would have turned out something different than a life-long prison drudge. He was handsome, genteel in appearance, an apt scholar, though very self-willed and headstrong, and as he grew up his naturally hot temper became uncontrollable. At an early age he had discovered that by threats of self-injury he could bend his parents to his wishes, but found in his stepfather one who would put up with no nonsense; even when he cut himself so as to bleed freely, instead of the coveted indulgence it only procured him an additional thrashing. At 15 he had become ungovernable at home, and his father had him put in the county insane asylum, where he remained a year and a half. While there he caused so much trouble that the attendants were only too glad when he escaped and went to Liverpool. Here he succeeded in getting a situation with a dealer in bric-a-brac, rare books and antiquities. In a short time the proprietor placed so much confidence in his integrity that he gave him the charge of his place during his own absences, and young Heep was not long in taking advantage of his position to rob his employer by taking a book or other article which he sold to some one of his master's customers. This went on for some time until on one occasion he took the book to a shop kept by a woman to whom he had previously sold several articles and offered it for a sovereign. She examined it and found that it was an ancient, illuminated Greek manuscript, worth fifty times more than the price young Heep asked for it, and, suspecting something wrong, she told him to come again for the money the next evening. At the appointed time he entered the place and was confronted by his master, who contented himself with upbraiding him for his perfidy and discharging him from his service. At this period of his career he had contracted vicious habits, the most pernicious for him being that of drink, for when sober he was in his right mind, but the moment the drink was in his common sense departed, and he became a raving maniac, ready to fight or perpetrate any other act of folly. Up to this time he had never been tempted to steal only in order to supply means for improper indulgences.