Author: Walter Besant

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-04

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9781330685549

Excerpt from The Orange Girl On a certain afternoon in May, about four or five of the clock, I was standing at the open window of my room in that Palace to which Fortune leads her choicest favourites the College, or Prison, as some call it, of the Kings Bench. I was at the time a prisoner for debt, with very little chance of ever getting out. More fortunate than most of the tenants, I was able to carry on my business. For instance, all that morning I had been engaged in composing a song-it was afterwards sung with great applause at the Dog and Duck; and on the bed reposed the instrument with which I earned the greater part of my daily bread-my faithful violin. My window was on the ground-floor in the great building which was then new, for the Prison had been transferred from the other side two or three years before. This building contains more than two hundred rooms, and twice that number of prisoners. Many of the ground-floor rooms have been converted into shops-chandlers', grocers', mercers', hosiers'. You may buy anything in these shops, except a good book. I believe that there is no demand in the prison for such an article of commerce. Song-books and jest-books and cards on the other hand, are constantly called for. It was a day of bright sunshine. Outside, on the Grand Parade-otherwise called King Street-which is a broad footway flagged, strolled up and down in the sunshine an endless procession. They paced the pavement from East to West; they turned and paced it again from West to East. Among them were a few neatly attired, but by far the greater number, men and women, were slatternly, untidy, and slipshod. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.