The chaplain at the “House of Detention” was, I should say, rather a good sort; he and I had frequent conversations, and as he was the man who had once put a spoke into Bignell’s “Argyll” wheel, and as I was the humble instrument that had “smashed, defeated, and utterly pulverized” Barnabas Amos and his night-house, a bond of mutual interest at once sprang up between us as enemies of immorality in general, and Bignell and Amos in particular. This reverend gentleman was, I should say, decidedly High Church; he wore all day (and for aught I know all night) a black skull-cap and gown, and possessing an enormous red beard, that came down to his waist, he invariably inspired me with much the same amount and sort of reverence that I entertain when contemplating stained-glass likenesses of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. His manner at first was a little pompous, especially when he was telling me of the sort of books he would permit and not permit me to order in; he was, however, despite these peculiarities, unmistakably a gentleman, both in manner and appearance—two qualifications I subsequently discovered were sadly deficient in more than one of his species. And now the door was opened with a terrific bang, and I was told by a turnkey with bated breath and evidently suffering from excessive mental excitement, that “the Governor” was coming round, and before I had time to shake myself together, and rise to receive him, the great man was in my cell. Captain — was the beau ideal of a plunger, and had served many years in the K.D.G.’s. He eventually exchanged from soldiering to “prisoning,” and had served his time as “Deputy” of Exeter and Cold Bath Fields prisons. I was told at this latter retreat that he was in those days excessively zealous in the matter of dust, and that his great height enabled him to extract infinitesimal atoms of this irrepressible commodity from shelves and ventilators that men more of the “Zachæus” type would never have noticed. Like most men, however, time had blunted his zeal for these trifles, and when I saw him he had grown out of these absurdities of his novitiate, and appeared as one who had an unpleasant duty to perform, and who was anxious to do it as pleasantly as possible. He accosted me as one might expect a gentleman would, and asked me if there was anything he could do to ameliorate my condition? I mentioned certain things, and he at once gave the necessary orders for my being permitted newspapers, pen, ink, and paper, my gas at night, and exemption from chapel and exercise. All this brought it to near twelve o’clock, when dinners commenced being “served;” and without detailing all the horrors I ate, suffice it to say that another plateful of offal, such as a hyæna would jib at, duly made its appearance, and was as duly demolished, more or less. The first day in this terrible place is perhaps more awful than any subsequent one; for, irrespective of the novelty of the situation and not having “settled