"Of course you can," exclaimed the knacker, casting a triumphant glance around him. "And do you know," he continued, "that half the diseases and illnesses which takes hold on us without any wisible cause, and which sometimes puzzles the doctors themselves, comes from eating this bad meat that I've been talkin' about. Now, tell me—ain't a bit out of a good healthy horse, that was killed in a reg'lar way, with the blood flowing, better than a joint off a old cow that dropped down dead of the yallows in a field during the night, and wasn't found so till the morning?"
With these words the knacker took his departure, leaving his hearers disgusted, indignant, and astonished at what they had heard.
As the clock struck nine, the Resurrection Man and the Cracksman entered the "Boozing Ken." They repaired straight into the parlour, and seemed disappointed at not finding there some one whom they evidently expected.
"He ain't come yet, the young spark," said the Cracksman. "And yet he's had plenty of time to go home and get a change o' linen and that like."
"May be he has turned into bed and had a good snooze," observed the Resurrection Man. "He is not so accustomed to remain up all night as we are."
"I think his head is rag'lar turned with what he has seen in the great crib yonder. He seemed to give sich exceeding wague answers to the questions we put to him as we walked through the park this morning. I've heerd say that the conwersation of great people is wery gammoning, and that they can't always understand each other: so, if young Holford has been listening to their fine talk, it's no wonder he's got crankey."
"Humbug!" ejaculated the Resurrection Man, sulkily. "Let's have some egg-flip, and we'll wait for him. If he comes he shall give us all the information we want; and if he doesn't, we will lay wait for him, carry him off to the crib, and let the Mummy take care of him till he chooses to speak."
"Yes—that'll be the best plan," said the Cracksman. "But don't you think it's a wery likely thing he wants to have the whole business to himself?"
"That's just what I do think," answered the Resurrection Man, "he'll find himself mistaken, though—I rather fancy."
"So do I," echoed the Cracksman. "But let's have this egg-flip."
With these words he ordered the beverage; and, in due time a quart pot filled with the inviting compound, with a foaming head, and exhaling a strong odour of spices, was brought in by a paralytic waiter, who had succeeded the slip-shod girl mentioned on a former occasion.
"Good stuff this," said the Cracksman, smacking his lips. "I wonder whether poor Buffer has got anythink half so good this morning."
"What's to-day? Oh! Friday," mused the Resurrection Man, as he sipped his quantum of flip from a tumbler, with a relish equal to that evinced by his companion: "let's see—what's the fare to-day in Clerkenwell Prison?"
"Lord! don't you recollect all that?" cried the Cracksman; and taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, he wrote the Dietary Table of Clerkenwell New Prison upon the wall:—
| Soup. | Gruel. | Meat. | Bread. | |
| Pint. | Pint. | Ounces. | Ounces. | |
| Monday | .. | 2½ | .. | 20 |
| Tuesday | .. | 1½ | 6 | 20 |
| Wednesday | .. | 2½ | .. | 20 |
| Thursday | .. | 2½ | .. | 20 |
| Friday | 1 | 1½ | .. | 20 |
| Saturday | .. | 1½ | 6 | 20 |
| Sunday | 1 | 1½ | .. | 20 |
| Total Weekly Allowance | 2 | 13½ | 12 | 140 |
"That's a nice allowance for a strong healthy fellow!" exclaimed the Resurrection Man contemptuously. "One month upon that will make his flesh as soft and flabby as possible. It's a shame, by heavens! to kill human beings by inches in that way!"
"What a precious fool the Buffer has made of himself!" said the Cracksman after a pause.
"The Buffer!" ejaculated the paralytic waiter, who had been affecting to dust a table as an excuse to linger in the room with the chance of obtaining an invitation to partake of the flip: "is any thing wrong with the Buffer?"
"Safe in lavender," answered the Cracksman, coolly; "and ten to one he'll swing for it."
"My eyes! I'm very sorry to hear that," cried the waiter. "He was a capital fellow, and never took the change when he gave me a joey[73] to pay for his three-penn'orth of rum of a morning."
"Well, he's done it brown at last, at all events," continued the Cracksman.
"What has he done?" asked the waiter.
"Why—what he isn't likely to have a chance of doing again," answered the Cracksman. "I suppose you know that he married Moll Flairer, the sister of him as was killed by Bill Bolter at the Old House in Chick Lane, three years or so ago? Well—he had a child by Moll; and a very pretty little creetur it was. Even a fellow like me that can't be supposed to have much feeling for that kind of thing, used to love to play with that little child. It was a girl; and I never did see such sweet blue eyes, and soft flaxy hair. The moment she was born, off goes the Buffer and subscribes to half a dozen burying clubs. The secretaries and treasurers was all exceedin' glad to see him, took his tin, and put down his name. This was about two year ago. He kept up all his payments reg'lar; and he was also precious reg'lar in keeping up such a system of ill-treatment, that the poor little thing seemed sinking under it. Now, as I said before, I'm not the most remarkablest man in London for feeling; but I'm blow'd if I couldn't have cried sometimes to see the way in which the Buffer and Moll would use that child. I've seen it standing in a pail of cold water, stark naked, in the middle of winter, when the ice was floating on the top; and because it cried, its mother would take a rope, half an inch thick, and belabour its poor back. Then they half starved it, and made it sleep on the bare boards. But the little thing loved its parents for all that; and when the Buffer beat Moll, I've seen