elf
much pleased with the quickness of my parts, and honoured me with an
assurance that in less than three months he would engage to make me as
complete a ruffler as ever nailed a swell.

To this gratifying compliment I made the best return in my power.

"You must not suppose," said Jonson--some minutes afterwards, "from
our use of this language, that our club consists of the lower order of
thieves--quite the contrary: we are a knot of gentlemen adventurers who
wear the best clothes, ride the best hacks, frequent the best gaming
houses, as well as the genteelest haunts, and sometimes keep the first
company in London. We are limited in number: we have nothing in common
with ordinary prigs, and should my own little private amusements (as you
appropriately term them) be known in the set, I should have a very
fair chance of being expelled for ungentlemanlike practices. We rarely
condescend to speak 'flash' to each other in our ordinary meetings, but
we find it necessary, for many shifts to which fortune sometimes drives
us. The house you are going this night to visit, is a sort of colony
we have established for whatever persons amongst us are in danger of
blood-money. [Rewards for the apprehension of thieves.] There they
sometimes lie concealed for weeks together, and are at last shipped off
for the continent, or enter the world under a new alias. To this refuge
of the distressed we also send any of the mess, who, like Dawson, are
troubled with qualms of conscience, which are likely to endanger the
commonwealth; there they remain, as in a hospital, till death, or a
cure, in short, we put the house, like its inmates, to any purposes
likely to frustrate our enemies, and serve ourselves. Old Brimstone
Bess, to whom I shall introduce you, is, as I before said, the guardian
of the place; and the language that respectable lady chiefly indulges
in, is the one into which you have just acquired so good an insight.
Partly in compliment to her, and partly from inclination, the dialect
adopted in her house, is almost entirely 'flash;' and you, therefore,
perceive the necessity of appearing not utterly ignorant of a tongue,
which is not only the language of the country, but one with which no
true boy, however high in his profession, is ever unacquainted."

By the time Jonson had finished this speech, the coach stopped--I looked
eagerly out--Jonson observed the motion: "We have not got half-way yet,
your honour," said he. We left the c