to pay off my debt and costs that day,
but must remain over the succeeding, I could
not see why I need search the books now.
But the only reply I got was, that there might
be other detainers against me to such a heavy
amount that the sheriff's officer would not think
of detaining me at his own risk, but must send me
to Whitecross-street. Besides this, the fee of
half-a-crown was always charged for searching
the sheriff's books when a prisoner first came
into Bream's-buildings, and if I did not pay it,
I must go to Whitecross-street. Of course I
paid it. I may mention that, in Whitecross-
street, the charge for this very same operation of
searching whether there are any detainers
against a prisoner, is only a shilling, though
the distance from that jail to the sheriff's office
in Queen's-square, is about six times what it is
from Bream's-buildings.

Notwithstanding the disagreeable feeling of
being behind bars in a cage, I cannot say that
the time I passed in Bream's-buildings was
altogether an unpleasant one. Men in trouble soon
get to know one another. I often pass now at
the west-end of London a very languid-looking
gentleman, who seems to have hardly energy
enough to dress himself. He is the younger son
of a peer, and was formerly captain in a crack
hussar regiment. This gentleman was five days
in Bream's-buildings with me, and a more jolly
fellow never drank indifferent Cape wine at six
shillings a bottle in that establishment, than did
this ex-dragoon. He was the life and soul of
the party, and as liberal with his very excellent
cigars and some very first-rate claret which
was sent him from his west-end lodgings, as if
he had had the fortune of Baring Brothers. He
had been some weeks in the place when I
arrived, and occupied (by right of seniority, I
suppose) the best bedroom, close to the "coffee-
room." There was only one respect in which he
and Bream's-buildings did not get on well
together. "The captain," as he was called,
would never get up before one o'clock, and this
put the whole establishment out, more
particularly did it annoy a very fiery-faced
charwoman who used to make our beds. The captain
had a sponge-bath in his room, and insisted upon
having that filled when he got up. It would
not do, he said, to have it filled overnight,
for the room was much too small for it to remain
in, unless it was put up on end. Now, there
would have been no objection whatever to his
having the pail of water for his tub at any reasonable
hour, but One-eye, as well as the old lady
who made the beds, and whom we called
"Capias," strongly objected to bringing it at
one o'clock in the afternoon. On one occasion
they refused to do so. The captain replied that
he never argued with any one, but as he could
not dress without his tub, he must remain
undressed; and he walked into the coffee-room in
his shirt, and remained there until his request
was complied with. I never knew how the
captain got out of Bream's-buildings, but he got
out lawfully, somehow.

Army men—officers in the army, and those
who have left the service—clergymen, and—
strangely enough—attorneys, seem to form the
majority of lodgers in Bream's-buildings. Of
course, for one debtor who goes here when he is
arrested, a hundred go direct to Whitecross-
street. The army men who are taken to Bream's-
buildings generally remain some time there,
expecting every day to get out, but usually
ending by going to Whitecross-street, en
route to the Bankruptcy Court. No officer
can remain in the service after he has filed his
petition, and this is often made the instrument
by which money-lenders and others extort more
money than they otherwise could from their
military victims. The line of conduct which
the bloodsuckers pursue is, almost invariably
to obtain a lien upon the purchase-money of
his commission; so that when the time comes,
they force him to sell out, unless his friends
help him.

Clergymen generally manage somehow to
settle their affairs so that they get out of
Bream's-buildings in time. A few, but not
many, end by going through the Bankruptcy
Court. How attorneys, with their knowledge
and cunning of craft, allow themselves
to be locked up, exceeds my comprehension.
And yet there were several gentlemen of
this profession in limbo with me. One
had been there for weeks. His clerk used
to come to him every morning with a bundle
of papers, and he used to carry on his business
just as if he had been in his own office:
only, as a "matter of course," he could not
go out.

Bad as Bream's-buildings is in the charges
it makes, I am bound to say that it is
nothing compared to a certain sponging-house
I have heard of in the City. A friend of mine
was arrested once within the limits of the City,
and thinking he could easily arrange matters,
asked to be kept a few days in custody of the
sheriff's officer rather than go to Whitecross-
street. Ten days before he could bring
matters to a settlement, and his expenses
in that time amounted to nearly thirty pounds.
It is extraordinary what men will pay rather
than go to jail. However, notwithstanding all
I expended, it was my fate to go there after all.
But why I went, and what I saw when I was
in Whitecross-street, must form the subject of
another chapter.

Now ready, bound in cloth, price 5s. 6d.,
VOLUME THE SEVENTEENTH.