him a service and he should find she had no other end in it; that
as she came purely on so friendly an account, she begged promise from
him, that if he did not accept what she should officiously propose he
would not take it ill that she meddled with what was not her business.
She assured him that as what she had to say was a secret that belonged
to him only, so whether he accepted her offer or not, it should remain
a secret to all the world, unless he exposed it himself; nor should his
refusing her service in it make her so little show her respect as to do
him the least injury, so that he should be entirely at liberty to act
as he thought fit.

He looked very shy at first, and said he knew nothing that related to
him that required much secrecy; that he had never done any man any
wrong, and cared not what anybody might say of him; that it was no part
of his character to be unjust to anybody, nor could he imagine in what
any man could render him any service; but that if it was so
disinterested a service as she said, he could not take it ill from any
one that they should endeavour to serve him; and so, as it were, left
her a liberty either to tell him or not to tell, as she thought fit.

She found him so perfectly indifferent, that she was almost afraid to
enter into the point with him; but, however, after some other
circumlocutions she told him that by a strange and unaccountable
accident she came to have a particular knowledge of the late unhappy
adventure he had fallen into, and that in such a manner, that there was
nobody in the world but herself and him that were acquainted with it,
no, not the very person that was with him.

He looked a little angrily at first. 'What adventure?' said he.
'Why,' said she, 'of your being robbed coming from Knightbr----;
Hampstead, sir, I should say,' says she. 'Be not surprised, sir,' says
she, 'that I am able to tell you every step you took that day from the
cloister in Smithfield to the Spring Garden at Knightsbridge, and
thence to the ---- in the Strand, and how you were left asleep in the
coach afterwards. I say, let not this surprise you, for, sir, I do not
come to make a booty of you, I ask nothing of you, and I assure you the
woman that was with you knows nothing who you are, and never shall; and
yet perhaps I may serve you further still, for I did not come barely to
let you know that I was informed of these things, as if I wanted a
bribe to conceal them; assure yourself, s