“private” correspondence was invariably House of Commons paper, and, excepting perhaps being almost imperceptibly soiled, was as good as new. The traffic in tobacco through this agency is by no means inconsiderable, and before I had made my personal arrangements for a weekly supply I have frequently exchanged food for cigarettes; but they were far from satisfactory, and I found them infinitely better adapted for choking than chewing. Butt-ends of cigars, too, find a ready market; but at this point I invariably drew the line, and preferred—inveterate smoker though I am—to forego the luxury of chewing a cigar that had been half-masticated by some scorbutic quill-driver. The special trade that I was put to was worsted work. I was officially described as a “needleman,” a title I had more claim to than may appear at first sight. Needlemen are employed either in knitting stockings, making shirts, or darning blankets, shirts, or socks. I had the choice of any of these delectable pursuits, and selected the latter as the most easy of evasion. Darning burglars’ stockings, I admit, sounds a humble and unsavoury vocation; but considering they are boiled for about three days before passing into the needlemen’s hands, any antipathy on the subject must be attributed to sheer prejudice. Other motives also influenced me; it was far the lightest and most elastic job, and a reserve bundle I always kept in stock did me good service on the thimble rig principle. The allotted task was 15 pair a day _at least_, but thanks to my “reserve” (a far greater success than Mr. Cardwell’s), and “auxiliaries” of other kinds, I found that two pair and sometimes three a day met all the “requirements of the service.” The nature of my work amusingly exemplified Locke’s theory of the “Association of Ideas,” and I never took up a stocking without having vividly presented to my mind the scene in “Faust,” where Marguerite is bound to lame the wearer. I speak from personal knowledge, for one afternoon I experimentalized with one of my specimen repairs and blistered my foot for a month. I often had qualms of conscience as I saw the numerous men that were limping round at exercise—the number of whom appeared to increase in proportion to the quantity of stockings I darned—and I could not help feeling that I was the unintentional cause of all this misery. My deplorable incapacity in the Berlin wool and fancy line was once nearly getting me into a terrible scrape. Amongst the pedestrians that exercised at the same time as myself was an ex-convict and desperado, who prided himself on the recital of his past experiences, and who had undergone penal servitude in Australia and England almost without interruption during the past 20 years. He was a Hercules in appearance, addicted to the use of his fists on the slightest provocation, and about the last man whose susceptibilities one would care to offend. On his arrival some twelve months previously he had laid down