before twelve at noon.

Sometimes, when he is sure that I have found him out, and that
there is no chance of money, he writes to inform me that I have got
rid of him at last. He has enlisted into the Company's service,
and is off directly - but he wants a cheese. He is informed by the
serjeant that it is essential to his prospects in the regiment that
he should take out a single Gloucester cheese, weighing from twelve
to fifteen pounds. Eight or nine shillings would buy it. He does
not ask for money, after what has passed; but if he calls at nine,
to-morrow morning may he hope to find a cheese? And is there
anything he can do to show his gratitude in Bengal?

Once he wrote me rather a special letter, proposing relief in kind.
He had got into a little trouble by leaving parcels of mud done up
in brown paper, at people's houses, on pretence of being a Railway-
Porter, in which character he received carriage money. This
sportive fancy he expiated in the House of Correction. Not long
after his release, and on a Sunday morning, he called with a letter
(having first dusted himself all over), in which he gave me to
understand that, being resolved to earn an honest livelihood, he
had been travelling about the country with a cart of crockery.
That he had been doing pretty well until the day before, when his
horse had dropped down dead near Chatham, in Kent. That this had
reduced him to the unpleasant necessity of getting into the shafts
himself, and drawing the cart of crockery to London - a somewhat
exhausting pull of thirty miles. That he did not venture to ask
again for money; but that if I would have the goodness TO LEAVE HIM
OUT A DONKEY, he would call for the animal before breakfast!