"'Give me ninety and keep the ten. I don't mind a fair commission,' I replied, and so we settled it at once, and had a good laugh over the sodding fools, as I stood a bottle of fizz."
After telling me the foregoing tale, he went on:—
"Did you ever hear that I was four years in the Reformatory at Red Hill? That was where I first had a prick up my arse."
"No," I replied. "But do you mean to say such things can be done there?"
"Yes," said George; "and if it had not been such a hell of a place I should have been a good scholar. Of course, the boys are supposed to go to school and work in the grounds. As for work, it was nearly all play; and none of us cared for the good-natured old schoolmaster, and so never learnt much.
"As to the sleeping arrangements, I was in what they called a dormitory—it ought to have been called a back-door-mitory. There were over twenty of us boys and lads in the one large room.
"As soon as we were locked in for the night, one of the biggest of them, observing me for the first time, says: 'Hullo! here's a greenhorn. We'll soon make a free-man of him!'
"They crowded round me, just as I had almost got my clothes off ready to get into bed with another of about my own size (I was fifteen).