“Yes,” was the impudent reply, “I expect a great deal better than you do.”
A better story still is told of this man later, when set at large on ticket-of-leave. Through barefaced misrepresentation he had been permitted to take the duty of a beneficed clergyman during his absence from the parish. In due course came an invitation to dine with the local magnate, whose place was some distance from the rectory. Our ex-convict clergyman ordered a carriage and pair from the neighbouring town, and drove to the hall in state. As he alighted from the carriage, his footman, hired also for the occasion, recognized his face in the blaze of light from the open door. “Blow me, if that ain’t Slimy B., the chaplain’s man, who did his ‘bit’ along with us at the ‘Steel,’” he exclaimed. Both coachman and lacquey were ex-convicts too, and after that the secret soon leaked out. The reverend doctor found his country parish rather too hot to hold him. Some of his later misdeeds consisted in decoying and plundering governesses in search of situations; he also established himself in various neighbourhoods as a schoolmaster, and more than once succeeded in obtaining church duty.
Of the military men, the most prominent was a certain Captain C., who belonged to an excellent family, but who had fallen very low, going by degrees from bad to worse. He was long known as a notorious gambler and loose liver. At length, unable to earn enough money to gratify his vices by fair means, he sought to obtain it by foul, and became allied to a mob of ruffians who styled themselves “Men of the World.” In other words, he took to obtaining goods under false pretences. Captain C. was principally useful as a respectable reference to whom his accomplices could apply when they entered a strange shop and ordered goods. “Apply to my friend Captain So-and-so, of such-and-such a square; he has known me for years.” Reference is made to a house gorgeously furnished, an establishment in every way _bien monté_, the master thereof a perfect gentleman. “Do I know Mr. ——? Oh, dear, yes; I have known him for a long time. He is one of my most intimate friends. You may trust him to any amount.” Unhappily the pitcher goes often to the well, but it is broken at last. And at this game of fraud the circle of operations grows naturally ever narrower. At length the whole conspiracy became known to the police, and Captain C. found himself ere long in Millbank. He seems to have been treated there rather too well for an idle, good-for-nothing rascal, who would do no work, and who expected—so said the officers—to be always waited upon. Undoubtedly he was pampered, had his books from the deputy-governor’s own library, and extra food. More than this, his wife—a lady once, also of good family, but fallen with her husband to an abyss of infamy and depravity which made her notorious for wickedness even in this wicked city—was frequently admitted to visit him, coming always in silks and satins and flaunting attire, which was sadly out of keeping with her husband’s temporary abode.