a mind to have done his neighbour any service, he
should have stood at a distance, and silently watched to see whether I
had touched anything or no, and then have clapped in upon me, and taken
me in the fact. 'That is very true,' says Mr. Alderman, and turning to
the fellow that stopped me, he asked him if it was true that I knocked
with my foot? He said, yes, I had knocked, but that might be because
of his coming. 'Nay,' says the alderman, taking him short, 'now you
contradict yourself, for just now you said she was in the shop with her
back to you, and did not see you till you came upon her.' Now it was
true that my back was partly to the street, but yet as my business was
of a kind that required me to have my eyes every way, so I really had a
glance of him running over, as I said before, though he did not
perceive it.

After a full hearing, the alderman gave it as his opinion that his
neighbour was under a mistake, and that I was innocent, and the
goldsmith acquiesced in it too, and his wife, and so I was dismissed;
but as I was going to depart, Mr. Alderman said, 'But hold, madam, if
you were designing to buy spoons, I hope you will not let my friend
here lose his customer by the mistake.' I readily answered, 'No, sir,
I'll buy the spoons still, if he can match my odd spoon, which I
brought for a pattern'; and the goldsmith showed me some of the very
same fashion. So he weighed the spoons, and they came to
five-and-thirty shillings, so I pulls out my purse to pay him, in which
I had near twenty guineas, for I never went without such a sum about
me, whatever might happen, and I found it of use at other times as well
as now.

When Mr. Alderman saw my money, he said, 'Well, madam, now I am
satisfied you were wronged, and it was for this reason that I moved you
should buy the spoons, and stayed till you had bought them, for if you
had not had money to pay for them, I should have suspected that you did
not come into the shop with an intent to buy, for indeed the sort of
people who come upon these designs that you have been charged with, are
seldom troubled with much gold in their pockets, as I see you are.'

I smiled, and told his worship, that then I owed something of his
favour to my money, but I hoped he saw reason also in the justice he
had done me before. He said, yes, he had, but this had confirmed his
opinion, and he was fully satisfied now of my having been injured. So
I came off with flying colours, t