or a very dexterous manager in the nicest
cases. I found that this last was the best and easiest sort of work
that was in my way, and I made it my business to inquire out prohibited
goods, and after buying some, usually betrayed them, but none of these
discoveries amounted to anything considerable, not like that I related
just now; but I was willing to act safe, and was still cautious of
running the great risks which I found others did, and in which they
miscarried every day.

The next thing of moment was an attempt at a gentlewoman's good watch.
It happened in a crowd, at a meeting-house, where I was in very great
danger of being taken. I had full hold of her watch, but giving a
great jostle, as if somebody had thrust me against her, and in the
juncture giving the watch a fair pull, I found it would not come, so I
let it go that moment, and cried out as if I had been killed, that
somebody had trod upon my foot, and that there were certainly
pickpockets there, for somebody or other had given a pull at my watch;
for you are to observe that on these adventures we always went very
well dressed, and I had very good clothes on, and a gold watch by my
side, as like a lady as other fold.

I had no sooner said so, but the other gentlewoman cried out 'A
pickpocket' too, for somebody, she said, had tried to pull her watch
away.

When I touched her watch I was close to her, but when I cried out I
stopped as it were short, and the crowd bearing her forward a little,
she made a noise too, but it was at some distance from me, so that she
did not in the least suspect me; but when she cried out 'A pickpocket,'
somebody cried, 'Ay, and here has been another! this gentlewoman has
been attempted too.'

At that very instance, a little farther in the crowd, and very luckily
too, they cried out 'A pickpocket,' again, and really seized a young
fellow in the very act. This, though unhappy for the wretch, was very
opportunely for my case, though I had carried it off handsomely enough
before; but now it was out of doubt, and all the loose part of the
crowd ran that way, and the poor boy was delivered up to the rage of
the street, which is a cruelty I need not describe, and which, however,
they are always glad of, rather than to be sent to Newgate, where they
lie often a long time, till they are almost perished, and sometimes
they are hanged, and the best they can look for, if they are convicted,
is to be transported.

This was a narrow