Josephs touched his cap to the governor and the gentlemen and went off.

“That is a nice quiet-looking boy,” said one of the justices; “what is he in for?”

“He is in this time for stealing a piece of beef out of a butcher’s shop.”

“This time! what! is he a hardened offender? he does not look it.”

“He has been three times in prison; once for throwing stones, once for orchard-robbing, and this time for the beef.”

“What a young villain! at his age—–­”

“Don’t say that, Williams,” said Mr. Wright dryly, “you and I were just as great villains at his age.  Didn’t we throw stones? rather!”

Hawes laughed in an adulatory manner, but observing that Mr. Williams, who was a grave, pompous personage, did not smile at all, he added: 

“But not to do mischief like this one, I’ll be bound.”

“No,” said Mr. Williams, with an air of ruffled dignity.

“No?” cried the other, “where is your memory?  Why, we threw stones at everything and everybody, and I suppose we did not always miss, eh?  I remember your throwing a stone through the window of a place of worship—­(this was a school-fellow of mine, and led me into all sorts of wickedness).  I say, was it a Wesleyan shop, Williams, or a Baptist? for I forget.  Never mind, you had a fit of orthodoxy.  What was the young villain’s second offense?”

“Robbing an orchard, sir.”

“The scoundrel! robbing an orchard?  Oh, what sweet reminiscences those words recall.  I say, Williams, do you remember us two robbing Farmer Harris’s orchard?”

“I remember your robbing it, and my character suffering for it.”

“I don’t remember that; but I remember my climbing the pear-tree and flinging the pears down, and finding them all grabbed on my descent.  What is the young villain’s next—­Oh! snapping a piece off a counter.  Ah! we never did that—­because we could always get it without stealing it.”

With this Mr. Wright strolled away from the others, having had what the jocose wretch used to call “a slap at humbug.”

His absence was a relief to the others.  These did not come there to utter sense in fun but to jest in sober earnest.

Mr. Williams hinted as much, and Hawes, whose cue it was to assent in everything to the justices, brightened his face up at the remark.

“Will you visit the cells, gentlemen,” said he, with an accent of cordial invitation, “or inspect the book first?”

They gave precedence to the latter.

By the book was meant the log-book of the jail.  In it the governor was required to report for the justices and the Home Office all jail events a little out of the usual routine.  For instance, all punishments of prisoners, all considerable sicknesses, deaths and their supposed causes, etc., etc.

“This Josephs seems by the book to be an ill-conditioned fellow; he is often down for punishment.”