"Then I uttered a scream, and struggled dreadfully to get away, that I might still accomplish my purpose; but he held me tight, saying, 'Silly boy! why do you fly from life, since it may yet have many pleasures for you?'—'No!' I cried: 'I will never become a thief again!'—'And I will never ask you to do so,' he replied. 'But come with me, and let us talk over your prospects.'—'Prospects!' I repeated in a hysterical manner; and then I followed him mechanically to an early breakfast-house close by. He ordered a plentiful meal; and I ate ravenously. The food and hot coffee cheered me; and I began to feel grateful to Bones for having supplied the means to appease the hunger that was devouring me. Moreover, one looks with quite a different eye upon suicide after a good meal; and I could not do otherwise than regard him as the saviour of my life. I was therefore already prepared to listen to him with attention; and when he proposed that we should repair to Bunce's, where we could converse without fear of being overheard, I willingly agreed to accompany him. But during our walk to Seven Dials, I constantly repeated within my own breast the most solemn vows not to yield to any threats or representations—menaces or coaxings—to induce me to become a thief again! "When we reached the house in Earl Street, Mrs. Bunce received me with more kindness than I had expected to meet at her hands, after the trick I had played her a few days before at Woolwich. But she did not treat me thus without a motive; for when once she and Old Death got me between them, they endeavoured to the utmost of their power to persuade me to resume my old avocations. I was faithful to my vow, and assured them that they might kill me sooner than I would again do any thing to risk imprisonment in that horrible Newgate. It was not the hulk I so much dreaded—nor yet transportation, because I knew nothing of it; but I shrunk from the mere idea of going through the ordeal of Newgate a second time. Old Death saw that I was not to be moved—at least then; and he gave up the point. 'But,' said he, 'you must do something to get a living: you can't starve; and _we_ won't maintain you in idleness. If you like, I'll take you into my service to run on errands, look after people that I want to learn any thing about and make yourself useful in that way; and I'll give you a shilling a-day.'—I agreed—for I could not starve.