eover, on the tidbits of the
table; and to-day I was in a cell, nobody coming to look at me but the
blackguard porter who had charge of me, my cards taken from me, and with
nothing but bread and water to live upon. Time passed dreary enough for
a month, at the end of which time his reverence came to me, leaving the
porter just outside the door in older to come to his help should I be
violent, and then he read me a very purty lecture on my conduct, saying I
had turned the religious house topsy-turvy, and corrupted the scholars,
and that I was the cheat of the world, for that on inspecting the pack he
had discovered the dirty marks which I had made upon the trump cards for
to know them by. He said a great deal more to me, which is not worth
relating, and ended by telling me that he intended to let me out of
confinement next day, but that if ever I misconducted myself any more, he
would clap me in again for the rest of my life. I had a good mind to
call him an ould thaif, but the hope of getting out made me hold my
tongue, and the next day I was let out; and need enough I had to be let
out, for what with being alone, and living on the bread and water, I was
becoming frighted, or, as the doctors call it, narvous. But when I was
out--oh, what a change I found in the religious house! no card-playing,
for it had been forbidden to the scholars, and there was now nothing
going on but reading and singing, divil a merry visage to be seen, but
plenty of prim airs and graces; but the case of the scholars, though bad
enough, was not half so bad as mine, for they could spake to each other,
whereas I could not have a word of conversation, for the ould thaif of a
rector had ordered them to send me to "Coventry," telling them that I was
a gambling cheat, with morals bad enough to corrupt a horse regiment; and
whereas they were allowed to divert themselves with going out, I was kept
reading and singing from morn till night. The only soul who was willing
to exchange a word with me was the cook, and sometimes he and I had a
little bit of discourse in a corner, and we condoled with each other, for
he liked the change in the religious house almost as little as myself;
but he told me that, for all the change below stairs, there was still
card playing going on above, for that the ould thaif of a rector, and the
sub rector, and the almoner played at cards together, and that the rector
won money from the others--the almoner had told him so--and