ree of
them were but too able to do it, I was under a great concern about it,
and kept within doors for a good while. But my governess--whom I
always made partner in my success, and who now played a sure game with
me, for that she had a share of the gain and no share in the hazard--I
say, my governess was something impatient of my leading such a useless,
unprofitable life, as she called it; and she laid a new contrivance for
my going abroad, and this was to dress me up in men's clothes, and so
put me into a new kind of practice.

I was tall and personable, but a little too smooth-faced for a man;
however, I seldom went abroad but in the night, it did well enough; but
it was a long time before I could behave in my new clothes--I mean, as
to my craft. It was impossible to be so nimble, so ready, so dexterous
at these things in a dress so contrary to nature; and I did everything
clumsily, so I had neither the success nor the easiness of escape that
I had before, and I resolved to leave it off; but that resolution was
confirmed soon after by the following accident.

As my governess disguised me like a man, so she joined me with a man, a
young fellow that was nimble enough at his business, and for about
three weeks we did very well together. Our principal trade was
watching shopkeepers' counters, and slipping off any kind of goods we
could see carelessly laid anywhere, and we made several good bargains,
as we called them, at this work. And as we kept always together, so we
grew very intimate, yet he never knew that I was not a man, nay, though
I several times went home with him to his lodgings, according as our
business directed, and four or five times lay with him all night. But
our design lay another way, and it was absolutely necessary to me to
conceal my sex from him, as appeared afterwards. The circumstances of
our living, coming in late, and having such and such business to do as
required that nobody should be trusted with the coming into our
lodgings, were such as made it impossible to me to refuse lying with
him, unless I would have owned my sex; and as it was, I effectually
concealed myself. But his ill, and my good fortune, soon put an end to
this life, which I must own I was sick of too, on several other
accounts. We had made several prizes in this new way of business, but
the last would be extraordinary. There was a shop in a certain street
which had a warehouse behind it that looked into another street