, but only took care for the future to
button his pockets and to pack the cards with double industry.

In reality, this detection recommended these two prigs to each other,
for a wise man--that is to say, a rogue--considers a trick in life as a
gamester doth a trick at play. It sets him on his guard, but he admires
the dexterity of him who plays it.

When our two friends met the next morning, the count began to bewail the
misfortune of his captivity, and the backwardness of friends to assist
each other in their necessities.

Wild told him that bribery was the surest means of procuring his escape,
and advised him to apply to the maid, telling him at the same time that
as he had no money he must make it up with promises, which he would know
how to put off.

The maid only consented to leave the door open when Wild, depositing a
guinea in the girl's hands, declared that he himself would swear that he
saw the count descending from the window by a pair of sheets.

Thus did our young hero not only lend his rhetoric, which few people
care to do without a fee, but his money too, to procure liberty for his
friend. At the same time it would be highly derogatory from the great
character of Wild should the reader not understand that this was done
because our hero had some interested view in the count's enlargement.

Intimacy and friendship subsisted between the count and Mr. Wild, and
the latter, now dressed in good clothes, was introduced into the best
company. They constantly frequented the assemblies, auctions, gaming-
tables, and play-houses, and Wild passed for a gentleman of great
fortune.

It was then that an accident occurred that obliged Wild to go abroad for
seven years to his majesty's plantations in America; and there are such
various accounts, one of which only can be true, of this accident that
we shall pass them all over. It is enough that Wild went abroad, and
stayed seven years.

_II.--An Example of Wild's Greatness_

The count was one night very successful at the gaming-table, where Wild,
who was just returned from his travels, was then present; as was
likewise a young gentleman whose name was Bob Bagshot, an acquaintance
of Mr. Wild's. Taking, therefore, Mr. Bagshot aside, he advised him to
provide himself with a case of pistols, and to attack the count on his
way home.

This was accordingly executed, and the count obliged to surrender to
savage force what he had in so genteel a manner taken at pla