I had long been getting into Hannah's good graces. I stood wine and brandy, was always respectful to her and the gay ladies I met in her parlour, and never used coarse, rude language to them, nor in speaking of them or of ladies of their class. Hannah told me I was a great favorite with several of them, as indeed I found to be the case. I may say that all my life I never spoke disrespectfully to, or of gay ladies, so long as they behaved themselves; they have been mostly throughout my life, kind and true to me after their fashion, they gave me pleasure, and I treated them as if I was grateful for it.

But I was moreover serviceable to Hannah. Once or twice as told she had brought me some figures to cast up, and when Sarah had left, she brought me others on various little scraps of paper. She asked me never to mention my having done so to her sister, and I did not. I became curious at finding the items were all in five shillings, seven and sixpence, ten and twenty shillings; at last it struck me what it was, and taxing her with it found it was the takings of the baudy house, she told me so with a laugh. She could not write herself.

The takings were put on slips of paper by the servants, and by some process of her own which she could not explain, she got a rough sort of check on the servants to prevent them robbing her. She had to account to the real owner of the house, — and how she did it she alone knows. This is certain (she once admitted it), that from the takings she put a pound a day into her own pocket. Whether she robbed the owner to that extent, or whether it was her admitted share I never knew. She was well dressed, had excellent food, allowed her Guardsman money, her sister's husband money, and others too I rather think. But after she'd taken her three or four hundred pounds a year, there was a splendid income handed over to some one. This house had but eight rooms, and two more closets to let out for fucking; they often took twenty pounds a day, and sometimes much more.

I did this arithmetic pretty regularly, and she be-came my fast friend. She told me all about Sarah that she knew (what Sarah at a future day told me agreed with it), and much about the habits of other loose ladies which will be partially narrated in due time, and a good deal about baudy house management.

And now more about Sarah's antecedents. A new species of entertainment had sprung into existence a few years before this time, called “Poses plastiques”, in which men and women covered with silk fitting tightly to their naked limbs and made quite white, placed themselves on stages in classical groups to the sound of music. Women and men of great physical beauty formed these groups, they were in fact actors of that class. Madame W...t.n known as a splendid model first got them up; her husband was a splendid man, Sarah was her niece, and also had a beautiful form which ran in the family; she was poor, and Madame W...t.n took her to live with them, and at seventeen years of age she appeared as Venus.

At nineteen she had a child by Madame W...t.n's husband, at twenty a second. Madame found out the father, and kicked Sarah out. Mr. W...t.n then kicked Madame out, and went to live with Sarah, rows ensued, other companies of “Poses plastiques” came into competition, the thing got overdone, he could not get his living; he knew a trade, but was I expect too lazy to work at it; so Sarah took to letting herself out as model, and that being poor pay, to letting out her cunt to get their bread; she had just began it when I first met her. They seem during a year or more to have parted with all their goods, before she took to showing her belly-parting for money.

So beautiful a form of course succeeded, and for a time I became the principal milk-cow. Then a proposition was made to form a troupe to go to the Continent; there seemed to be a grand opening, and with Sarah's money (most of it got from me), the apparatus, costumes properties, and troupe were got together. Off they had gone. She and her husband were the exhibition-managers, speculators, and chief actors.

Hannah made a mouth when I asked what sort of a man Mavis was. She did not think much of him, — why did he not work — he had a trade? — no, because he was no longer able to get on as an actor, he preferred to let Sarah get the living for the whole of them. “Ah ! you'll see her back, mark my words, — they won't succeed, — and then what will take place? —you'll see, — is she poor thing to work and do every-thing, that he may lay a bed, dress as a gentleman, and do nothing but take her out for a walk on a Sun-day; she is as proud of his taking her out for a walk on a Sunday as if he kept her a carriage.” After much reflexion I came to the conclusion that Sarah had only just turned harlot about the time I had first met her that she did it to keep her man and her family, and he got accustomed to his woman getting his living for him.

I kept on calling at J...s Street, always expecting to hear of Sarah. Hannah was glad to see me, for now I cast up her accounts weekly. I got acquainted with two or three ladies there who came at intervals to meet their friends. They were very nice women, none were ever to be seen in the streets, they had either their own acquaintances whom they met at J...s Street, or Hannah had introduced them to gentlemen there. They were not a bit like whores in dress, appearance or manner, and my acquaintance with them opened my mind to the fact, that there is a large amount of occult fucking going on with needy, middle-class women, whose mode of living and dressing, is a mystery to their friends, and who mingle with their own class of society without its being suspected, that their cunts are ever wetted by sperm which lawfully may not be put there.

I began to stand wine when I met them, and was introduced as a friend of Miss Mavis who had gone abroad. I was I found well known by name and a character for kindness, and I expect also for being a fool. All the women were shy at first, Hannah's sister (the servant) I overheard telling Hannah that the ladies did not like my being in the parlour. Hannah at times would ask me to leave, as a lady wanted to come into the parlour and wait there, and so on. But gradually Hannah would say, “Who is it? — oh ! she knows him”, — or “Oh ! she won't mind, — let her come in.” So by degrees I became intimate with these privately gay ladies, and several of them on more than one occasion joined their sweet bodies to mine in the game of under and over.

I had never had a woman in the house since Sarah had gone; firstly because I did not then pay more for the girls than I did for the room alone at J...s Street, and because I feared if Sarah came back Hannah would tell her, — as if it would have mattered to Sarah in any way excepting that another woman would get the money she might have had. Still I had that stupid idea about the matter, and although I had longed for one or two of the other ladies, and although they had looked languishingly at me. I never had then pro-posed a private interview upstairs.

One day Hannah said she had heard from Sarah who had asked after me. “They are (Sarah and the troupe) getting on well”, said Hannah, “if she says so I suppose they are, — but we shall see.” Suddenly, “Have you had another woman since she left?” The question startled me. “No.” “Oh ! I don't believe it, —if you haven't you're a nasty man.” Then I confessed, and told her what I had done. “Why don't you have Mrs. Fisher?”, said she. “I'm poor, and can't,-I'm not going to do what I did with Sarah.” “Lord she won't mind, — she'd like you I know, — but don't say I said so, — she's got a lovely leg, — she's a fine woman, — nearly as fine made as Sarah Mavis, and she is taller, — she never gets it done at home.” Hannah was unusually muddled with liquor that day, and let out; her sister was not there to check her with, “Now then Hannah you'd better shut up”, — and Hannah described Mrs. Fisher's hidden charms till my cock stood.