To ascertain the truth of my suspicion, I asked him whether his name was not Cristal Nixon.
'What is other folk's names to you,' he replied, gruffly, 'who cannot tell your own father and mother ?' 'You know them, perhaps!' I exclaimed eagerly.

'You know them! and with that secret is connected the treatment which I am now receiving?
It must be so, for in my life have I never injured any one.

Tell me the cause of my misfortunes, or rather, help me to my liberty, and I will reward you richly.' 'Aye, aye,' replied my keeper; 'but what use to give you liberty, who know nothing how to use it like a gentleman, but spend your time with Quakers and fiddlers, and such like raff! If I was your--hem, hem, hem!' Here Cristal stopped short, just on the point, as it appeared, when some information was likely to escape him.

I urged him once more to be my friend, and promised him all the stock of money which I had about me, and it was not inconsiderable, if he would assist in my escape.
He listened, as if to a proposition which had some interest, and replied, but in a voice rather softer than before, 'Aye, but men do not catch old birds with chaff, my master.

Where have you got the rhino you are so flush of ?' 'I will give you earnest directly, and that in banknotes,' said I; but thrusting my hand into my side-pocket, I found my pocket-book was gone.
I would have persuaded myself that it was only the numbness of my hands which prevented my finding it; but Cristal Nixon, who bears in his countenance that cynicism which is especially entertained with human misery, no longer suppressed his laughter.
'Oh, ho! my young master,' he said; 'we have taken good enough care you have not kept the means of bribing poor folk's fidelity.