“Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could, — though that warn't as often as you may think, till you put the question whether you would ha' been over-ready to give me work yourselves, — a bit of a poacher, a bit of a laborer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don't pay and lead to trouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Traveller's Rest, what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read; and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a time learnt me to write.

I warn't locked up as often now as formerly, but I wore out my good share of key-metal still.

“At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi' a man whose skull I'd crack wi'