I didn't see him, but a brute of a woman who lived in the house did, and was cute enough to see she could make a good thing out of me.

So she took possession of me, and ever since then I've been a prisoner, cut off from the outside world as completely as if I had been in a dungeon, grinding out pictures by the dozen, and never seeing a farthing of what they fetched, except in the food which Black Sal provided to keep me alive.
Now and then, in an amiable mood, she would get me a newspaper; and once I had to illustrate a cheap edition of Cook's _Voyages_, and of course had the book to go by.

But she never let me write to anybody or see anybody, and mounted guard over me as jealously as if I had been a veritable goose that laid golden eggs.
"You know the rest.

We got turned out when they pulled down the old place, and took refuge in Driver's Alley, a nice select neighbourhood; and there you found me, old man." "Think of being near one another so long," said Jeffreys, "and never knowing it." "Ten to one that's exactly what my guardian's daughter is observing to herself at this moment.

I say, Jeff, compared with Driver's Court, this is a palatial apartment, and you are a great improvement on Black Sal; but for ah that, don't you look forward to seeing a little civilisation--to eating with a fork, for instance, and hearing an `h' aspirated; and--oh, Jeff, it will be heavenly to wear a clean collar!" Jeffreys laughed.
"Your two years' trouble haven't cast out the spirit of irreverence, youngster," said he.
"It _is_ jolly to hear myself called youngster," said the boy, in a parenthesis; "it reminds me of the good old days." "Before Bolsover ?" said Jeffreys sadly.
"Look here! If you go back to that again, and pull any more of those long faces, Jeff, I'll be angry with you.