PRISONERS' CONVERSATIONS--LARRY AND TIM GET INTO CHOKEY--BIG CROPPY--WHAT PAT GETS "IN FOR"--MALICIOUS GAMBLING--PAT'S PATENT FOR GETTING A NEW COAT--DICK'S EXPLOITS--NED'S ADVENTURES AND ESCAPES--A NEW SCREW ARRIVES--A PRISONER EMPTIES THE WINE CUP AT THE ALTAR--NED, DICK, AND PAT'S OPINION ABOUT BADGES, CLASSIFICATION, HEAD BLOKES, PRISONERS' AID SOCIETY, AND THE IRISH SYSTEM. The following are specimens of the conversations which take place among the prisoners as they meet in the ordinary course of their prison employment. They were quite unaware that there was anyone near listening to them, or taking more than an ordinary interest in their remarks to each other, and my report may be taken as a perfectly accurate representation of ordinary convict conversation and phraseology. "Well, Dick, how are you?" "Oh! pretty well, Ned, how's yourself?" "Well, I'm among the middlings only. That beastly bad cheese they gave us yesterday hasn't agreed with me, and I think I shall hook it up to the 'farm'[21] for a week or two, and get a change of diet before going home. I am only waiting to get a bit of 'snout,' and then I shall send in a sick report. Have you heard what Larry and Tim have got this morning? Larry's got three days' bread and water, seven days' penal-class diet, and 'blued' fourteen days' remission; and Tim's got three days." [21] Hospital. "Well, Larry partly deserves it. He was a fool to let the 'screw' see he had the 'snout;' but what was Tim's offence?" "Speaking to a fellow in the ranks, and merely saying 'It was a fine morning;' he'll get turned out of the cook-house, too. It's a ---- shame, when other fellows talk away in the ranks every day. I say, what day do you go home?" "I ought to go on the 2nd, but these ---- licenses will be late again, no doubt, and very likely I shall not go before the 10th or 20th of the month. Have you any message for me to carry out?" "Do you remember 'Big Croppy?'" "Yes." "Well, he's been to my wife since he went out, and told her all manner of lies. He's told her that I accuse her of going with another man, and she has been to my mother and told her that she is not going to write to me any more, nor to live with me again. I have been to ask for a special sheet of paper to write and tell them that it is all lies Croppy has told them; but the ---- governor won't grant me paper. So, as I am not due to write for nearly three months, I wish you would call on my mother and my wife, and tell them how things stand." "I will, you may depend upon that, and I'll get some 'bloke' to give Croppy a pair of black eyes for his pains, the ---- swine." "Here comes Pat.--Well, Pat, have you heard that Larry and Tim have gone to chokey?" "Yes," replied Pat; "but what screw reported Tim?" "That leather-skinned cranky old terrier over there reported Tim, and the 'bloke' with the peg-top whiskers reported Larry." "Bad 'cess to the 'terrier!' I have a good mind to punch him in the ear-hole."