re, and the careless boys had forgot to take it away.

I went into the box frankly, and setting the silver tankard on the
corner of the bench, I sat down before it, and knocked with my foot; a
boy came presently, and I bade him fetch me a pint of warm ale, for it
was cold weather; the boy ran, and I heard him go down the cellar to
draw the ale. While the boy was gone, another boy came into the room,
and cried, 'D' ye call?' I spoke with a melancholy air, and said, 'No,
child; the boy is gone for a pint of ale for me.'

While I sat here, I heard the woman in the bar say, 'Are they all gone
in the five?' which was the box I sat in, and the boy said, 'Yes.' 'Who
fetched the tankard away?' says the woman. 'I did,' says another boy;
'that's it,' pointing, it seems, to another tankard, which he had
fetched from another box by mistake; or else it must be, that the rogue
forgot that he had not brought it in, which certainly he had not.

I heard all this, much to my satisfaction, for I found plainly that the
tankard was not missed, and yet they concluded it was fetched away; so
I drank my ale, called to pay, and as I went away I said, 'Take care of
your plate, child,' meaning a silver pint mug, which he brought me
drink in. The boy said, 'Yes, madam, very welcome,' and away I came.

I came home to my governess, and now I thought it was a time to try
her, that if I might be put to the necessity of being exposed, she
might offer me some assistance. When I had been at home some time, and
had an opportunity of talking to her, I told her I had a secret of the
greatest consequence in the world to commit to her, if she had respect
enough for me to keep it a secret. She told me she had kept one of my
secrets faithfully; why should I doubt her keeping another? I told her
the strangest thing in the world had befallen me, and that it had made
a thief of me, even without any design, and so told her the whole story
of the tankard. 'And have you brought it away with you, my dear?' says
she. 'To be sure I have,' says I, and showed it her. 'But what shall
I do now,' says I; 'must not carry it again?'

'Carry it again!' says she. 'Ay, if you are minded to be sent to
Newgate for stealing it.' 'Why,' says I, 'they can't be so base to
stop me, when I carry it to them again?' 'You don't know those sort of
people, child,' says she; 'they'll not only carry you to Newgate, but
hang you too, without any regard to the honesty of returning