would tell them. Yes, he was the Father of the place. So the
world was kind enough to call him; and so he was, if more than
twenty years of residence gave him a claim to the title. It looked
small at first, but there was very good company there--among a
mixture--necessarily a mixture--and very good air.

It became a not unusual circumstance for letters to be put under
his door at night, enclosing half-a-crown, two half-crowns, now and
then at long intervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Father of the
Marshalsea. 'With the compliments of a collegian taking leave.'
He received the gifts as tributes, from admirers, to a public
character. Sometimes these correspondents assumed facetious names,
as the Brick, Bellows, Old Gooseberry, Wideawake, Snooks, Mops,
Cutaway, the Dogs-meat Man; but he considered this in bad taste,
and was always a little hurt by it.


In the fulness of time, this correspondence showing signs of
wearing out, and seeming to require an effort on the part of the
correspondents to which in the hurried circumstances of departure
many of them might not be equal, he established the custom of
attending collegians of a certain standing, to the gate, and taking
leave of them there. The collegian under treatment, after shaking
hands, would occasionally stop to wrap up something in a bit of
paper, and would come back again calling 'Hi!'

He would look round surprised.'Me?' he would say, with a smile.
By this time the collegian would be up with him, and he would
paternally add,'What have you forgotten? What can I do for you?'