fine brandy, and we were sitting in the parlour drinking it
together mixed with water.

I had long been getting into Hannah's good graces. I stood wine and
brandy, was always respectful to her and the gay ladies I met in her
parlour, and never used coarse, rude language to them, nor in speaking
of them or of ladies of their class. Hannah told me I was a great
favorite with several of them, as indeed I found to be the case. I may
say that all my life I never spoke disrespectfully to, or of gay ladies,
so long as they behaved themselves; they have been mostly throughout my
life, kind and true to me after their fashion, they gave me pleasure,
and I treated them as if I was grateful for it.

But I was moreover serviceable to Hannah. Once or twice as told she had
brought me some figures to cast up, and when Sarah had left, she brought
me others on various little scraps of paper. She asked me never to
mention my having done so to her sister, and I did not. I became curious
at finding the items were all in five shillings, seven and sixpence, ten
and twenty shillings; at last it struck me what it was, and taxing her
with it found it was the takings of the baudy house, she told me so with
a laugh. She could not write herself.

The takings were put on slips of paper by the servants, and by some
process of her own which she could not explain, she got a rough sort of
check on the servants to prevent them robbing her. She had to account to
the real owner of the house,--and how she did it she alone knows. This
is certain (she once admitted it), that from the takings she put a pound
a day into her own pocket. Whether she robbed the owner to that extent,
or whether it was her admitted share I never knew. She was well dressed,
had excellent food, allowed her Guardsman money, her sister's husband
money, and others too I rather think. But after she'd taken her three or
four hundred pounds a year, there was a splendid income handed over to
some one. This house had but eight rooms, and two more closets to let
out for fucking; they often took twenty pounds a day, and sometimes much
more.

I did this arithmetic pretty regularly, and she became my fast friend.
She told me all about Sarah that she knew (what Sarah at a future day
told me agreed with it), and much about the habits of other loose ladies
which will be partially narrated in due time, and a good deal about
baudy house management.

And now more about Sarah's antecedents. A new s