having failed to come to an accommodation, there was no help for it--the Queen must eat in the cold.[59] A surprising incident opened everyone's eyes to the confusion and negligence that reigned in the Palace. A fortnight after the birth of the Princess Royal the nurse heard a suspicious noise in the room next to the Queen's bedroom. She called to one of the pages, who, looking under a large sofa, perceived there a crouching figure 'with a most repulsive appearance.' It was 'the boy Jones.' This enigmatical personage, whose escapades dominated the newspapers for several ensuing months, and whose motives and character remained to the end ambiguous, was an undersized lad of seventeen, the son of a tailor, who had apparently gained admittance to the Palace by climbing over the garden wall and walking in through an open window. Two years before he had paid a similar visit in the guise of a chimney-sweep. He now declared that he had spent three days in the Palace, hiding under various beds, that he had 'helped himself to soup and other eatables,' and that he had 'sat upon the throne, seen the Queen, and heard the Princess Royal squall.' Every detail of the strange affair was eagerly canvassed. _The Times_ reported that the boy {134} Jones had 'from his infancy been fond of reading,' but that 'his countenance is exceedingly sullen.' It added: 'The sofa under which the boy Jones was discovered, we understand, is one of the most costly and magnificent material and workmanship, and ordered expressly for the accommodation of the royal and illustrious visitors who call to pay their respects to Her Majesty.' The culprit was sent for three months to the 'House of Correction.' When he emerged, he immediately returned to Buckingham Palace. He was discovered, and sent back to the 'House of Correction' for another three months, after which he was offered £4 a week by a music hall to appear upon the stage. He refused this offer, and shortly afterwards was found by the police loitering round Buckingham Palace. The authorities acted vigorously, and, without any trial or process of law, shipped the boy Jones off to sea. A year later his ship put into Portsmouth to refit, and he at once disembarked and walked to London. He was re-arrested before he reached the Palace, and sent back to his ship, the _Warspite_. On this occasion it was noticed that he had 'much improved in personal appearance and grown quite corpulent'; and so the boy Jones passed out of history, though we catch one last glimpse of him in 1844 falling overboard in the night between Tunis and Algiers. He was fished up again; but it was conjectured--as one of the _Warspite's_ officers explained in a letter to _The Times_--that his fall had not been accidental, but that he had deliberately jumped into the Mediterranean in order to 'see the life-buoy light burning.' Of a boy with such a record, what else could be supposed?[60] {135}