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heard. I was one of countless unfortunates what was put forward for sentencing that morning and Constable Hodge was telling the court that I was a troublemaker. I had just enjoyed two nights’ hospitality in an Old Bailey cell under his protection and I still had the bruising to show for it. Not that Jailer Hodge was responsible for these; in truth he had tried to stop me from getting bruised-up the night before. The good fellow had chancedupon me getting a kicking from Constable Hummerstone in the outer yard, which I had broken into during my third try at escape. Hummerstone was applying his boot to me with enthusiasm when Hodge had ordered him to stop.
    â€˜Hummerstone!’ he cried. ‘Have you run mad? The whole prison can hear you.’
    â€˜I caught the rascal again, sir,’ said Hummerstone sweating. ‘You should see the damage he’s done to his cell door. Lord knows where he keeps getting the chisels from.’
    â€˜But can’t you see he’ll be red raw? He’ll use those marks against us in court. I’ll take him back to the lower cells while you get him a nice soft cushion. Then we’ll take turns punching him while the other holds it between.’ He was a kind old soul, Constable Hodge.
    I promised Hodge and Hummerstone not to peach about their violent ways, if they swore not to bring up my escape bids, but I still found plenty to say to the magistrate. I addressed the court in a most familiar manner and accused the police of entering into a conspiracy against me. When my arresting officer gave his statement I threw some nice insults across at him and I then asked the magistrate to hurry things along as I had an appointment in town after lunch. I then declared that I had several good character witnesses sitting just outside the doors and when they couldn’t be found I said they must have gone to lunch. None of this amused the officers of the court but it went over very well with the watching crowds, who liked to see some cheek in the face of authority. I saw few people I recognised in the crowd, which was as expected, as my sort of people tend to steer clear of the police office.
    The magistrate was having none of me. He had a head on him what seemed to be made out of red brick, like it was weighing down into the rest of him, and this discomfort may account forthe harshness of his judgment. Seven years transportation he gave me, just because I was a notorious criminal well known to the law in many a locality. He couldn’t have cared less about my promise and talent. I was booked for a passage aboard a ship what was to sail me down the Thames, away from my home city, and take me around the world to Australia, where it’s nothing but heat, flies and hard labour, and no one has invented anything worth pinching except for some queerly shaped sticks. A place where the sun makes a mockery of Christmas, and if St Nicholas shows up he wonders if he hasn’t read his calendar wrongly. Australia, where a lesser lad would have remained, withered and died.
    But the Crown was soon to discover that, like the boomerang, I was not to be chucked so easy.

Chapter 2
The Booted Cat
    Wherein I relate my happy return to British shores after six years away. I am much changed
    Sometimes, in the more fashionable novels, there comes a part in the story what is so very unpleasant that the cove narrating it will spare his reader the horrible details and write something such as
No words can describe the horrors that I endured
. This is never true – there are always words to describe anything.
    Take my voyage out to New South Wales by way of argument. Some of the words I could use to describe what it was like to travel on a six-month voyage down in a hold with fifty other convicts