y wench. Again and again the lust of preaching
urged him to repent, yet he slid back upon his past gaiety, until
Parson Pureney became a byword. Dismissed from Newmarket in disgrace, he
wandered the country up and down in search of a pulpit, but so infamous
became the habit of his life that only in prison could he find an
audience fit and responsive.

And, in the nick, the chaplaincy of Newgate fell vacant. Here was
the occasion to temper dissipation with piety, to indulge the twofold
ambition of his life. What mattered it, if within the prison walls he
dipped his nose more deeply into the punch-bowl than became a divine?
The rascals would but respect him the more for his prowess, and knit
more closely the bond of sympathy. Besides, after preaching and punch
he best loved a penitent, and where in the world could he find so rich a
crop of erring souls ripe for repentance as in gaol? Henceforth he might
threaten, bluster, and cajole. If amiability proved fruitless he would
put cruelty to the test, and terrify his victims by a spirited reference
to Hell and to that Burning Lake they were so soon to traverse. At last,
thought he, I shall be sure of my effect, and the prospect flattered
his vanity. In truth, he won an immediate and assured success. Like
the common file or cracksman, he fell into the habit of the place,
intriguing with all the cleverness of a practised diplomatist, and
setting one party against the other that he might in due season decide
the trumpery dispute. The trusted friend of many a distinguished prig
and murderer, he so intimately mastered the slang and etiquette of the
Jug, that he was appointed arbiter of all those nice questions of honour
which agitated the more reputable among the cross-coves. But these were
the diversions of a strenuous mind, and it was in the pulpit or in the
closet that the Reverend Thomas Pureney revealed his true talent.

As the ruffian had a sense of drama, so he was determined that his words
should scald and bite the penitent. When the condemned pew was full of
a Sunday his happiness was complete. Now his deep chest would hurl
salvo on salvo of platitudes against the sounding-board; now his voice,
lowered to a whisper, would coax the hopeless prisoners to prepare their
souls. In a paroxysm of feigned anger he would crush the cushion with
his clenched fist, or leaning over the pulpit side as though to approach
the nearer to his victims, would roll a cold and bitter eye upon t