"The same. I shall know all about it to-morrow. She is to be tried at the Old Bailey, and I am on the jury, as it happens."
Mr. Niggles then departed to his suburban villa, and passed the remainder of the evening as became so respectable a man.
The next morning he was early at business; and, in his capacity of citizen, did not neglect his duties in the court, where he arrived exactly two minutes before any of the other jurymen.
When the prisoner was placed in the dock, I saw at once that she was the sister of my first possessor. She had attempted to pass two bad shillings at a grocer's shop. She had denied all knowledge that the money was bad, but was notwithstanding arrested, examined, and was committed for trial. Here, at the Old Bailey, the case was soon dispatched. The evidence was given in breathless haste; the judge summed up in about six words, and the jury found the girl guilty. Her sentence was, however, a very short imprisonment.
It was my fortune to pass subsequently into the possession of many persons, from whom I learnt some particulars of the afterlife of this family. The father survived his daughter's conviction only a few days. The son was detained in custody; and as soon as his identity became established, charges were brought against him which led to his being transported. As for his sister—I was once, for a few hours, in a family where there was a governess of her name. I had no opportunity of knowing more; but—as her own nature would probably save her from the influences to which she must have been subjected in jail—it is but just to suppose, that some person might have been found to brave the opinion of society, and to yield to one so gentle, what the law calls "the benefit of a doubt."
The changes which I underwent in the course of a few months were many and various—now rattling carelessly in a cash-box; now loose in the pocket of some careless young fellow, who passed me at a theatre; then, perhaps, tied up carefully in the corner of a handkerchief, having become the sole stock-in-hand of some timid young girl. Once I was given by a father as a "tip" or present to his little boy; when, I need scarcely add, I found myself ignominiously spent in hard-bake ten minutes afterwards. On another occasion, I was (in company with a sixpence) handed to a poor woman, in payment for the making of a dozen shirts. In this case I was so fortunate as to sustain an entire family, who were on the verge of starvation. Soon afterwards, I formed one of seven, the sole stock of a poor artist, who contrived to live upon my six companions for many days. He had reserved me until the last—I believe because I was the brightest and best-looking of the whole; and when he was at last induced to change me, for some coarse description of food, to his and my own horror, I was discovered!
The poor fellow was driven from the shop; but the tradesman, I am bound to say, did not treat me with the indignity that I expected. On the contrary, he thought my appearance so deceitful, that he did not scruple to pass me next day, as part of change for a sovereign.
Soon after this, somebody dropped me on the pavement, where, however, I remained but a short time. I was picked up by a child, who ran instinctively into a shop for the purpose of making an investment in figs. But, coins of my class had been plentiful in that neighborhood, and the grocer was a sagacious man. The result was, that the child went figless away, and that I—my edges curl as I record the humiliating fact—was nailed to the counter as an example to others. Here my career ended, and my biography closes.