There was holly and mistletoe round the gas-pipes; but how woeful and forlorn they looked! There was roast-beef and plum-pudding preparing at the fire-place; but they had neither the odor nor the appearance of free beef and pudding. I was thinking of the cosy room, the snug fire, the well-drawn curtains, the glittering table, the happy faces, when the turnkey introduced me to the steward of the ward (an officer appointed by the prisoners, and a prisoner himself) who “tables you off,” _i.e._, who allotted me a seat at one of the cross-tables, which was henceforward mine for all purposes of eating, drinking, writing, or smoking; in consideration of a payment on my part of one guinea sterling. This sum made me also free of the ward, and entitled to have my boots cleaned, my bed made, and my meals cooked. Supposing that I had not possessed a guinea (which was likely enough), I should have asked for time, which would have been granted me; but, at the expiration of three days, omission of payment would have constituted me a defaulter; in which case, the best thing I could have done would have been to declare pauperism, and remove to the poor side of the prison. Here, I should have been entitled to my “sixpences,” amounting in the aggregate to the sum of three shillings and sixpence a week toward my maintenance. The steward, a fat man in a green “wide-awake” hat, who was incarcerated on remand for the damages in an action for breach of promise of marriage, introduced me to the cook (who was going up next week to the Insolvent Court, having filed his schedule as a beer-shop keeper). He told me, that if I chose to purchase any thing at a species of every-thing-shop in the yard, the cook would dress it; or, if I did not choose to be at the trouble of providing myself, I might breakfast, dine, and sup at his, the steward’s, table, “for a consideration,” as Mr. Trapbois has it. I acceded to the latter proposition, receiving the intelligence that turkey and oyster-sauce were to be ready at two precisely, with melancholy indifference. Turkey had no charms for me now.