"How long have you been here, granny?"
"Since seven years last Christmas."
A long sentence, if it is the first one. I was sure it was not. A long life full of transgressions of the law stretched itself upon her past history.
"What are you here for, Nellie?" I asked a girl not twenty.
"A handsome Balmoral skirt took my fancy, and I'm here for it. I took a sup of liquor, and I was as rich as a Jew. I thought the Balmoral and all that I saw was mine."
"It is glorious to feel so rich!" said Lissett. "I mean to get a sup of liquor before I get back into the city."
"And be brought directly back here again."
"I shall have that one time on them."
"On yourself, you mean. It is all on yourself. The law does not suffer, nor do those who execute it, for your being here."
It was evidently a new aspect of the subject that they were the greatest sufferers for their misdoing.