"I went out there--voluntarily," he added, with a chuckle. "It was the Fourth of July and blazing hot, and I had three hours to put in before my train left. The man I went to see told me I'd find the Pen 'very instructive.' But when I got there, they were giving all these wretches a holiday, in honour of Uncle Sam's birthday, and I tell you they were a pretty hard-looking set. The guard was showing me through a yard, when suddenly one of these jolly, cursing, sky-larking parties in stripes dropped out of a bunch of them, and, says he, getting in the way, and staring hard at me: 'Mr. Breckinridge, don't you know me?' I didn't at all, for a minute, although really, considering his age, and the kind of life he must have led, he hasn't changed much. Then: 'Will you 'ave 'ock with your hoysters, sir?' said the scoundrel with a wink--and it flashed on me who he was! 'Huddesley!' I shouted out. The attendant was perfectly petrified; he thought I must be some old pal of Huddesley's--I had to explain before he would let us talk. Eh? Why, _sure_! As the children say, _sure_! I talked to him, and he asked after everybody with the greatest interest. He even got quite autobiographical and confidential after a while; told me he was up for five years this time (for a little trouble he got into in New Orleans, he said delicately), but he had served two-thirds of the sentence, and would be out in six months, his time having been shortened for good behaviour. 'There's nothin' to it, anyway, Mr. Breckinridge,' says he, in a serious manner. 'I guess I ought to know, I've tried both ways. It's me for the simple life after this; my eyes are kind of troubling me, and I'm getting along in years. I'm goin' to square it after I get out this time----' He meant he was going to live honestly, you know. 'In all I've spent eighteen years in the stir'--that's slang for the prison, it seems--'with a sentence here and a sentence there, since the first time of all in Pentonville, 'long back in '72. That's a good while out of a man's life that ain't but fifty-five years old. I'm going to cut it out after this. I begun pretty young and I'm through now.' He told me he was London-born, Seven Dials, some slum, I suppose--'That's where Hi got the haccent,' he said, grinning again. He had a chequered career before we knew him, footman, errand-boy, sneak-thief, actor, preacher, insurance-agent, confidence-man--it would be hard to say what he hadn't been. There was an interval when he was apprentice to a pastry-cook--I think he was honest then, for about a year, until the till was left open one evening. He said that was where he learned the trade of cook--'But I was always was one to pick up things quick, _you_ know that, Mr. Breckinridge,' he said with a funny swagger. I asked him if he had had an eye on Mrs. Pallinder's diamonds from the first, or whether he just took the chance when it came. He gave me an odd look. 'Say, you don't mind asking questions, do you?' he said.