"I don't mean to say that this was done every day, but perhaps once or twice a week, when they knew the governor was gone out. He used to come round first, and then as soon as he was gone the spree was started."
A few days ago George Brown, when a little under the influence of Bacchus, let me partially into another secret of his, which affords a partial clue to how so many unaccountable mysterious disappearances are always being mentioned in the papers.
"Do you know, Jack," he said, "what I do when things are a bit slack? I can always earn a poney (twenty-five pounds) if I take a little girl of about fifteen to a certain house in Paris; in fact, they will give me an extra fiver for every year she is under that age, so that a girl between eleven and twelve is worth forty pounds and all expenses paid. Now and then I get them a boy for a change, as they are in great demand for the rich visitors to Paris, especially for the Americans, who are nearly all sodomites. You heard of the case of General Ney, who shot himself the other day? Well, he was a regular customer to a certain Mme. R---- that I know, but they were too greedy, she and her ponce; always wanting money, and threatening the General to tell his wife and mother-in-law if he didn't shell out, so at last the poor fellow blew his brains out. If the boys or girls turn out obstinate, they are outraged with brutal violence, and then disappear no one knows how, but I have nothing to do with that.
"A fortnight ago I went down Whitechapel way, and dropped on to such a nice, pretty boy. He was a shoeblack, and, although only about thirteen years of age, beautifully formed and well hung with fine light golden hair, blue eyes and cherry lips. I fell in love with him myself. Whilst he was blacking my boots I asked a lot of questions about what he earned, etc., and soon found that he lived in a refuge, where they kept nearly all he brought in every night to pay for his schooling and board, etc., as he had no parents or relatives of any kind.
"Here was a chance for G. B., so I soon got him to promise to meet me near Moses' shop in Aldgate in the evening, and the result was I bought him a rig-out as a page, had his ragged-school livery made up into a parcel and sent back to the refuge, and took him off in triumph to my lodgings, a fresh place I engaged for that purpose that very afternoon. He was my page, and had a little bed made up in an anteroom next my own bedroom.