his end so happy. You will learn, a little further on,
what scurvy tricks Fortune played him, and how at last his poor little
brains succumbed to the rough toasting of that graceless jade. I had
always thought him Mad, and Mad, indeed, as a March hare he proved to be
in the long run.

And now as to Myself, for it is surely fitting that a proper young
Fellow, such as I was now, stout and vigorous, and going for nineteen
years of age, should no longer remain in the Background. First I hied me
to London by the waggon, where, after four days' journey--for it was ill
travelling in those days, between London and Dover--I arrived without
any misadventure. I was my own Master, I had Ten Pound in my pocket
(the two additional Pieces being now spent), and I did not know one
single soul in a city of eight hundred thousand inhabitants. Is it to be
wondered at, under these premises, that before I fixed upon any decided
line of life, I went, first of all, to the Deuce. It took me but a
woundily short time to reach that Goal. For ten pounds you may reckon,
we will say--if you put up at a small alehouse in the Borough--upon
about ten friends who shall be very fond of you for a couple of days. I
think, at the beginning of the third, I had just three and sixpence left
wherewith to buy a razor to cut my throat withal. "Stuff and nonsense!"
cried the last of the fleeting friends who had abided with me. "Three
and sixpence for a razor, forsooth! why, a yard of good new cord, quite
strong enough to bear your weight, can be bought in any shop in
Tooley-street for a penny. You have just three and fivepence left,
brother, to make yourself merry for the day, and, please the pigs, we
will be merry as grigs upon it until Sundown (for I took a fancy to you
the first minute I set eyes upon you), and even then there are two ways
out of the hobble, without twisting your weasand. I have a pair of
pistols, and as I love you like a brother, will share anything with you;
and we will pad the hoof betwixt this and Deptford, and see whether we
can meet any fat Kentish hop-grower on his way to the Borough Market
with more money than wit--a capital plan, any way, seeing that if you
fail, the Sheriff will hang you for nothing, and you can keep your penny
for drink, or else you can list for a soldier, as many a tall and pretty
fellow in the like straits has done before."

I civilly declined this amicable and philosophical advice, for it had
suddenly become appa