Despite the perils with which he was girt, our young hero fought out to
the last; but the justice was not by any means willing to displease Mr.
Brandon, and observing that an incredulous and biting sneer remained
stationary on that gentleman's lip during the whole of Paul's defence, he
could not but shape his decision according to the well-known acuteness of
the celebrated lawyer. Paul was sentenced to retire for three months to
that country-house situated at Bridewell, to which the ungrateful
functionaries of justice often banish their most active citizens.

As soon as the sentence was passed, Brandon, whose keen eyes saw no hope
of recovering his lost treasure, declared that the rascal had perfectly
the Old Bailey cut of countenance, and that he did not doubt but, if ever
he lived to be a judge, he should also live to pass a very different
description of sentence on the offender.

So saying, he resolved to lose no more time, and very abruptly left the
office, without any other comfort than the remembrance that, at all
events, he had sent the boy to a place where, let him be ever so innocent
at present, he was certain to come out as much inclined to be guilty as
his friends could desire; joined to such moral reflection as the tragedy
of Bombastes Furioso might have afforded to himself in that sententious
and terse line,--

"Thy watch is gone,--watches are made _to go_."

Meanwhile Paul was conducted in state to his retreat, in company with two
other offenders,--one a middle-aged man, though a very old "file," who
was sentenced for getting money under false pretences, and the other a
little boy who had been found guilty of sleeping under a colonnade; it
being the especial beauty of the English law to make no fine-drawn and