jaws, the cracking of bones, shrieks, and the voracious in-and-out of his
breath edged with anger. A girl by my side exclaimed, 'It's not the
Bench, after all! Would I have run to see a paltry two-story
washerwoman's mangling-shed flare up, when six penn'orth of squibs and
shavings and a cracker make twice the fun!'

I turned to her, hardly able to speak. 'Where 's the Bench, if you
please?' She pointed. I looked on an immense high wall. The blunt
flames of the fire opposite threw a sombre glow on it.

The girl said, 'And don't you go hopping into debt, my young cock-
sparrow, or you'll know one side o' the turnkey better than t' other.'
She had a friend with her who chid her for speaking so freely.

'Is it too late to go in to-night?' I asked.

She answered that it was, and that she and her friend were the persons to
show me the way in there. Her friend answered more sensibly: 'Yes, you
can't go in there before some time--in the morning.'

I learnt from her that the Bench was a debtors' prison.

The saucy girl of the pair asked me for money. I handed her a crown-
piece.

'Now won't you give another big bit to my friend?' said she.

I had no change, and the well-mannered girl bade me never mind, the saucy
one pressed for it, and for a treat. She was amusing in her talk of the
quantity of different fires she had seen; she had also seen accidental-