Whitecross-street, he told me (or Burdon’s Hotel, as in the prison slang he called it), was the only place where any “life” was to be seen. The Fleet was pulled down; the Marshalsea had gone the way of all brick-and-mortar; the Queen’s Prison, the old “Bench,” was managed on a strict system of classification and general discipline; and Horsemonger-lane was but rarely tenanted by debtors; but in favored Whitecross-street, the good old features of imprisonment for debt yet flourished. Good dinners were still occasionally given; “fives” and football were yet played; and, from time to time, obnoxious attorneys, or importunate process-servers—“rats” as they were called—were pumped upon, floured, and bonneted. Yet, even Whitecross-street, he said with a sigh, was falling off. The Small Debts Act and those revolutionary County Courts would be too many for it soon. That tall, robust, bushy-whiskered man, (he said) in the magnificently flowered dressing-gown, the crimson Turkish smoking cap, the velvet slippers, and the ostentatiously displayed gold guard-chain, was a “mace-man:” an individual who lived on his wits, and on the want of wit in others. He had had many names, varying from Plantagenet and De Courcy, to “Edmonston and Co.,” or plain Smith or Johnson. He was a real gentleman once upon a time—a very long time ago. Since then, he had done a little on the turf, and a great deal in French hazard, roulette, and _rouge et noir_. He had cheated bill-discounters, and discounted bills himself. He had been a picture-dealer, and a wine-merchant, and one of those mysterious individuals called a “commission agent.” He had done a little on the Stock Exchange, and a little billiard-marking, and a little skittle-sharping, and a little thimble-rigging. He was not particular. Bills, however, were his passion. He was under a cloud just now, in consequence of some bill-dealing transaction, which the Commissioner of Insolvency had broadly hinted to be like a bill-stealing one. However, he had wonderful elasticity, and it was to be hoped would soon get over his little difficulties. Meanwhile, he dined sumptuously, and smoked cigars of price; occasionally condescending to toss half-crowns in a hat with any of the other “nobs” incarcerated.