addressed him in a certain language, which might be called the
freemasonry of flash, and which Paul, though he did not comprehend
_verbatim_, rightly understood to be an inquiry whether he was a thorough
rogue and an entire rascal. He answered half in confusion, half in
anger; and his reply was so detrimental to any favourable influence he
might otherwise have exercised over the interrogator, that the latter
personage, giving him a pinch in the ear, shouted out, "Ramp, ramp!" and
at that significant and awful word, Paul found himself surrounded in a
trice by a whole host of ingenious tormentors. One pulled this member,
another pinched that; one cuffed him before, and another thrashed him
behind. By way of interlude to this pleasing occupation, they stripped
him of the very few things that in his change of dress be had retained.
One carried off his handkerchief, a second his neckcloth, and a third,
luckier than either, possessed himself of a pair of carnelian
shirt-buttons, given to Paul as a _gage d'amour_ by a young lady who sold
oranges near the Tower. Happily, before this initiatory
process--technically termed "ramping," and exercised upon all new-comers
who seem to have a spark of decency in them--had reduced the bones of
Paul, who fought tooth and nail in his defence, to the state of magnesia,
a man of a grave aspect, who had hitherto plucked his oakum in quiet,
suddenly rose, thrust himself between the victim and the assailants, and
desired the latter, like one having authority, to leave the lad alone,
and go and be d--d.

This proposal to resort to another place for amusement, though uttered in
a very grave and tranquil manner, produced that instantaneous effect
which admonitions from great rogues generally work upon little.
Messieurs the _ravmpers_ ceased from their amusements; and the ringleader
of the gang, thumping Paul heartily on the back, declared he was a
capital fellow, and it was only a bit of a spree like, which he hoped had