"The Bench is then a most convenient place for people who ought to be in Newgate?" said Curtis. "But live and learn; and the more one sees of the world——"
"The more curiouser it is—ain't it?" cried the turnkey. "Well—now you see that tall, stout gentleman there, walking up and down in front of the State House with the stick in his hand? He's been here some years, and is wery likely to stay a many years longer. His creditors allows him three guineas a week for his kindness in remaining a prisoner in the Bench."
"What!" ejaculated Curtis, now more astonished than ever. "His creditors pay him for staying here!"
"It's as true as you're alive, sir," was the reply; "and it's easy enough to explain, too. That gentleman has got a good landed estate, which is in the hands of his two or three principal creditors, who manage it and receive all the rents for the purpose of paying themselves their claims upon him. Well, now—if he went through the Insolvents' Court, all the creditors would come in for their share of the proceeds of the estate; and so the two or three principals ones allow him three guineas a week to keep him here and prevent him going through the Court. It's a deuced good thing for him, I can tell you; and he's as happy as a King. He has his wife—leastways, his lady with him,—we call 'em all wives here;—and he's got a batch of the loveliest and nicest children you ever see. There they are, sir—the little innocents—a-playing there in the mud, just as if there wasn't no such place as prison at all; and yet they was all born up in that room there in the State House, with the green safe at the window and the flower-pots."
"And who is that lame, elderly man, running about with newspapers in his hand?" enquired Frank.
"He's the newsman of the Bench—and a prisoner like the rest on 'em," was the answer. "Ah! some years ago he was a rich man, and in a flourishing way of business. But he got into Chancery, and that's the same as getting into the Bench; 'cos one always leads to t'other—for even to be a vinner in Chancery, one must pass at least a dozen years or so here fust. That seems to be the rule, as far as I can understand it. Well, sir—now that lame man is obliged to turn newsman; so you see there's a many rewerses in this world, sir. Ah! the world's a queer place, ain't it?—almost as queer as the Bench itself!"
What the turnkey's notions of the world might be, it is not easy to conceive: but they were evidently somewhat dim and misty—inasmuch as he seemed impressed with the belief that the Bench and the world were two distinct places:—but, then, the Bench was his world, though not a prisoner there himself; and perhaps he established a distinction as existing between the "world within" and the "world without." Alas! many—many who were prisoners did the same!
"Who are those two ladies that have just come down to walk on the gravel there, by the side of the racquet-ground?" enquired Frank Curtis, much amused by the turnkey's gossip.
"We call that gravel-walk the parade," observed the official. "Those ladies are mother and daughter; and it's the daughter that's a prisoner. She's a devilish fine gal; and the old woman stays with her to take care of her. But she and the Honourable Mr. Pettifer are deuced thick together; and the mother winks at it. Such things will happen in the best regilated families—particklerly in the Bench, where no one ain't over and above partickler. This isn't the shop for morals. Mr. Curtis: all the young single women that comes here, is sure to get corrupted. But that's no look-out of mine;"—and with this solacing conclusion, the turnkey hit the lock of the door a tremendous blow with his key.
"Be the power-rs! and is it afther staling a march upon me that ye are?" vociferated a well-known voice at this moment; and the captain stalked up to the gate, looking quite fresh and blooming after a good night's rest and copious ablutions.