"At this place, where I procured the half of a bed, my companion being a young girl of thirteen, who had already been a prostitute eighteen months, I received further lessons in the school of vice. In the morning I obtained a cup of coffee and a couple of rounds of thick bread-and-butter for my fourpence: having disposed of which, I hastened to my appointment with Old Death. He was waiting for me at the corner of the street, and asked me a great many questions about the people I had seen at the lodging-house. I satisfied him as far as I could; but, through some lingering feeling of shame, I did not tell him that a prostitute had been my bed-fellow. He desired me to follow him at a considerable distance, but to mind and not lose sight of him. He then led me for a long walk all about the West-end of London,—proceeding slowly, so that I might have an opportunity of looking at the shops and obtaining some knowledge of the position of the different streets: in a word, that I might be able to find my way about by myself another time. At about one o'clock we went into a public-house, where we had something to eat and drink, and rested for two or three hours. Then we set out on our wanderings again, and at about seven o'clock in the evening, we came to a halt in St. Giles's, where Old Death gave me money to enter a penny-theatre. I had not practised my hand at stealing any thing all day long; because he had not instructed me to do so. Neither, from that moment, did he ever put my abilities in that way to the test in his presence: so I suppose that the little affair in St. Paul's Churchyard was merely an experiment made to enable him to judge whether I had any _talent_ in the art of _conveyancing_, or not. In fact, he had tried me to ascertain whether I could be made useful; and, finding that I could, his object was now to introduce me to scenes and places where my morals might become confirmed in iniquity, or where there was a sphere for the exercise of my abilities. [Illustration]