His story was a sad one.

His father had been a gentleman, and the boy had been brought up in luxury and virtue.

While at school his father had died, and before he had left school his mother had been married again to a brute who not only broke her heart, but, after setting himself to corrupt his stepson, had at last turned him adrift without a penny in the world.

The lad, with no strong principle to uphold him, had sunk deep in vice.

Yet there lurked about him occasional flashes of something better.
"After all," he would say to Jeffreys, as the two lay at night almost on bare boards, "what's the odds?
I may be miserable one day, but I'm jolly the next.