Now the officers take leave of a discharged prisoner in English.  Farewell; good-by!—­a contraction for God be wi’ ye—­etc.  It used to be in French, Sans adieu! au revoir! and the like.

Having passed the merry, useful looms open this cell.  A she-thief looks up with an eye six times as mellow as when we were here last.  She is busy gilding.  See with what an adroit and delicate touch the jade slips the long square knife under the gossamer gold-leaf which she has blown gently out of the book—­and turns it over; and now she breathes gently and vertically on the exact center of it, and the fragile yet rebellious leaf that has rolled itself up like a hedgehog is flattened by that human zephyr on the little leathern easel.  Now she cuts it in three with vertical blade; now she takes her long flat brush and applies it to her own hair once or twice; strange to say the camel-hair takes from this contact a soupcon of some very slight and delicate animal oil, which enables the brush to take up the gold-leaf, and the artist lays a square of gold in its place on the plaster bull she is gilding.  Said bull was cast in the prison by another female prisoner who at this moment is preparing a green artificial meadow for the animal to stand in.  These two girls had failed at the watchmaking.  They had sight and the fine sensation of touch required, but they lacked the caution, patience and judgment so severe an art demanded; so their talents were directed elsewhere.  This one is a first-rate gilder, she mistressed it entirely in three days.

The last thing they did in this way was an elephant.  Cost of casting him, reckoning labor and the percentage he ought to pay to the mold, was 1s. 4d.  Plaster, chrome, water-size and oil-size, 3d.; goldleaf, 3s.; 1 foot of German velvet, 4d.; thread, needles and wear of tools, 1d.; total, 5s.

Said gold elephant standing on a purple cushion was subjected to a severe test of his value.  He was sent to a low auction room in London.  There he fell to the trade at 18s.  This was a “knock-out” transaction; twelve buyers had agreed not to bid against one another in the auction room, a conspiracy illegal but customary.  The same afternoon these twelve held one of their little private unlawful auctions over him; here the bidding was like drops of blood oozing from flints, but at least it was bona-fide, and he rose to 25s.  The seven shillings premium was divided among the eleven sharpers.  Sharper No. 12 carried him home and sold him the very next day for 37s. to a lady who lived in Belgravia, but shopped in filthy alleys, misled perhaps by the phrase “dirt cheap.”

Mr. Eden conceived him, two detected ones made him at a cost of 5s., twelve undetected ones caught him first for 18s., and now he stands in Belgravia, and the fair ejaculate over him, “What a duck!”

The aggregate of labor to make and gild this elephant was not quite one woman’s work (12 hours).  Taking 18s. as the true value of the work, for in this world the workman has commonly to sell his production under the above disadvantages, forced sale and the conspiracies of the unimprisoned—­we have still 13s. for a day’s work by a woman.