Here I was in a town where three of those whom at some time or other I had called master were living.

One was a common prisoner, one a hard-working curate, and one a raw recruit.

Of my other masters, one was a London thief, one lay in his grave, and the other, and best loved of all, was far away in scenes and perils which I could not so much as picture to myself.

What would become of me?
I knew not; but I could not help feeling the best part of my life was spent, for who could be to me again what some of those whom I now remembered had been?
I had arrived thus far in my meditations when I all of a sudden turned faint.

I knew what the matter was at once, and what did this lump of an Irishman understand about watch-keys and winding up?
I called faintly to the watered ribbon-- "I'm running down!" "Down where ?" ejaculated he, in well-feigned alarm.
"Wretch!" gasped I, "somebody ought to wind me up." "Up where ?" again asked my unsympathetic tormentor.
"Brute!" was all I could say.
"That's just the way with you clever people," began the ribbon; "as long as you are all right no name's bad enough for poor people like us; but as soon as ever you get into trouble--" Here with a groan I ran down, and was spared the end of his speech.
I only had a vague, dim idea of what took place for the next few months.
I was conscious of long railway journeys, and arriving at a big, dreary-looking sort of prison where there was nothing but soldiers.
All day long the place rang with bugle notes and words of command; and all night my master slept in a great room with a lot of noisy men, of whom I have an impression he was not the most silent.