So on Friday the student goes to the
prison of his own accord, and is admitted.
They soon separated from the Munchkin boy, who was led by the Soldier with the Green Whiskers down a side street toward the
prison. Ojo felt very miserable and greatly ashamed of himself, but he was beginning to grow angry because he was treated in such a disgraceful manner.
"DEAR SIR--Please advertise a series of twelve Racy Prints, from my fertile pencil, entitled, 'Scenes of Modern
Prison Life,' by Thersites Junior.
So that night, when the moon was shining through the palm-trees and all the King's men were asleep, the parrot slipped out through the bars of the
prison and flew across to the palace.
"Forward to the
prison, to the
prison!" echoed the crowd.
'Twenty years ago, that pavement was worn with the footsteps of a mother and child, who, day by day, so surely as the morning came, presented themselves at the
prison gate; often after a night of restless misery and anxious thoughts, were they there, a full hour too soon, and then the young mother turning meekly away, would lead the child to the old bridge, and raising him in her arms to show him the glistening water, tinted with the light of the morning's sun, and stirring with all the bustling preparations for business and pleasure that the river presented at that early hour, endeavour to interest his thoughts in the objects before him.
For, my dear children, you must know that it happened just then that the young emperor who ruled over the City of Simple Simons had gained a great victory over his enemy, and in celebration thereof, he had ordered illuminations, fireworks, shows of all kinds, and, best of all, the opening of all
prison doors.
With the idea of exploring my
prison, I started to look around.
While some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsome task; and some, rearing ladders against the
prison, tried to clamber to the summit of the walls they were too short to scale; and some again engaged a body of police a hundred strong, and beat them back and trod them under foot by force of numbers; others besieged the house on which the jailer had appeared, and driving in the door, brought out his furniture, and piled it up against the prison-gate, to make a bonfire which should burn it down.
"In this
prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have some free communication with the world outside?"
'Marshalsea Place:' the houses in which I recognised, not only as the great block of the former
prison, but as preserving the rooms that arose in my mind's-eye when I became Little Dorrit's biographer.
"In
prison?" said Mazarin, "and when has Rueil been a
prison?"