step, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

step n.¹

1. a slice of bread.

1899		A. Binstead Gal’s Gossip 14: The béneficiaire [...] was nothing loth to tackle ‘a bowl o’ brown, two steps and a boiled nest ’un’.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 234/1: Steps (Low. London, 19 cent.). Thick slices of bread and butter, overlaying each other on a plate – thus suggesting the idea of a flight of steps.

all the steps (n.) [the WWI thriller The Thirty Nine Steps (1915) by John Buchan]

(bingo) the number 39.

1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn).
2002		www.ildado.com 🌐 Bingo Nicknames [...] 39.. Those famous steps, All the steps.

eleven steps (n.) [the eleven steps that led to the front door of a well-known court house]

(W.I.) an arrest, a trial.

1952

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

go down the steps (v.)

to be sent to prison.

1956

‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 23: Fanlight went down the steps with three Christmas puddings to eat.

up the steps (also down the steps, up the stairs) [the steps that lead from the cells beneath the Old Bailey up into the dock]

on trial; thus go up the steps v., to be tried at the Old Bailey, to be sent to the Old Bailey from a lower court.

1936		H. Corey Farewell, Mr Gangster! 280: Slang used by English criminals [...] Up the steps – Sessions court.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 40: Harry went up the steps at the Bailey a few weeks later.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 16: At least I’d get a walk up the stairs.
1959		F. Norman in Encounter n.d. in Norman’s London (1969) 59: I can’t afford to get captured because I’ve already got six cons (convictions) and the last time I went up the steps (the sessions) the judge stuck me in promise land for a neves (told me I would get seven years next time).
1977		G.F. Newman Villain’s Tale 8: You scream the filth nicked your bit of dough. But you’re up the steps before a wrong ’un, you see what good it does you.
1989		in G. Tremlett Little Legs 198: up the steps being sent for trial; likewise, down the steps signifies acquittal or immediate release without imprisonment, believed to be a reference to the steps of the Old Bailey.