Page:The Sins of the Cities of the Plain.djvu/184

 for mercy; then we would bugger them and frig them till they almost fainted from exhaustion.

"I don't mean to say that this was done every day, but perhaps once or twice a week, when they knew the governor was gone out. He used to come round first, and then as soon as he was gone the spree was started."

A few days ago George Brown, when a little under the influence of Bacchus, let me partially into another secret of his, which affords a partial clue to how so many unaccountable mysterious disappearances are always being mentioned in the papers.

"Do you know, Jack," he said, "what I do when things are a bit slack? I can always earn a poney (twenty-five pounds) if I take a little girl of about fifteen to a