.

Soon after the events just recorded, Heep concluded to visit his old
home in Macclesfield. He accordingly threw up his situation, and arrived
at the railway station an hour before the train was due. In order to
while away the time he entered a public house and drank several glasses
of ale. The compartment which he entered happened to be empty, and as
usual whenever he indulged his appetite for anything containing alcohol,
he was soon quite out of his mind and fancied that some one on the train
was coming to murder him, and leaped headlong from the train, which was
going at the rate of forty miles an hour. This came to a standstill, he
was taken on board again, not seriously injured, and left at Wrexham in
Denbighshire, from which he was sent to the Denbigh Insane Asylum. This
being a Welsh institution, did not, according to Heep, possess those
facilities for enjoying life which were so liberally supplied to the
inmates of the Raynell asylum near Liverpool. Accordingly he behaved
himself with so much propriety that the doctor discharged him as cured.

Not long after his return he got work near Manchester at painting in a
block of new houses where the plumbers were at work putting in the gas
and water pipes. On a Saturday, when he left work at noon, he met a
young plumber who was out of a job. This man said he knew where he could
earn a sovereign if he had tools to do a job in a butcher shop, and told
Heep that if he would go to the houses where he had been painting and
borrow a few plumbers' tools and assist him he would divide the amount.
Heep went back, but finding that the master plumber and all his men had
gone (Saturday afternoon in England being a half-holiday for laborers),
he took the few tools required, went and finished the job by 7 p.m.;
then instead of taking the tools back, they went into a public house
where they caroused till midnight, when they separated, Heep taking the
tools to his boarding house. On Monday he started early, so as to get
the tools back before the other workmen arrived. On nearing the houses
he passed a policeman who walked a little lame. He turned his head to
look back, and the policeman happened to do the same thing, and seeing
Heep looking at him his suspicions were aroused. Turning back, he came
up and asked him what he had in the two bosses (tool baskets). Heep
informed him, and on further questioning showed him the key to the house
from which he had taken the tools, and asked hi