like,' he said,
'you unfortunate young beggar, until you're turned off.'

'If I'd only had you to see after me when I was young,' says I----

'Come; don't whine,' he said, then he burst out laughing. 'You didn't
mean it, I see. I ought to have known better. You're not one of that
sort, and I like you all the better for it.'

. . . . .

Well, here goes. Lots of pens, a big bottle of ink, and ever so much
foolscap paper, the right sort for me, or I shouldn't have been here.
I'm blessed if it doesn't look as if I was going to write copies again.
Don't I remember how I used to go to school in old times; the rides
there and back on the old pony; and pretty little Grace Storefield that
I was so fond of, and used to show her how to do her lessons. I believe
I learned more that way than if I'd had only myself to think about.
There was another girl, the daughter of the poundkeeper, that I wanted
her to beat; and the way we both worked, and I coached her up, was a
caution. And she did get above her in her class. How proud we were! She
gave me a kiss, too, and a bit of her hair. Poor Gracey! I wonder where
she is now, and what she'd think if she saw me here to-day. If I could
have looked ahead, and seen myself--chained now like a dog, and going to
die a dog's death this day month!

Anyhow, I must make a start. How do people begin when they set to work
to write their own sayings and doings? There's been a deal more doing
than talking in my life--it was the wrong sort--more's the pity.

Well, let's see; his parents were poor, but respectable. That's what
they always say. My parents were poor, and mother was as good a soul as
ever broke bread, and wouldn't have taken a shilling's worth that wasn't
her own if she'd been starving. But as for father, he'd been a poacher
in England, a Lincolnshire man he was, and got sent out for it. He
wasn't much more than a boy, he said, and it was only for a hare or
two, which didn't seem much. But I begin to think, being able to see the
right of things a bit now, and having no bad grog inside of me to turn a
fellow's head upside down, as poaching must be something like cattle
and horse duffing--not the worst thing in the world itself, but mighty
likely to lead to it.

Dad had always been a hard-working, steady-going sort of chap, good at
most things, and like a lot more of the Government men, as the convicts
were always called round our part, he saved some money as soon as he had