story of
the highway robbery had to be told.

No one about the inn was in the least surprised. Highwaymen haunted
Hammersmith and Turnham Green, and had the landlord of the "Red Cow"
chosen to open his mouth he might have thrown a little light upon the
man who had stopped the Bath coach.

Once more the coach was on its way and following it went Captain
Rofflash, dogging it to its destination at the Belle Savage. He watched
Lavinia alight and wherever she went he went too. Could she have
listened to what he was saying she would have heard the words:--

"By gad, it's the very wench. I'll swear 'tis. Perish me if this isn't
the best day's work I've done for many a day. If I don't make Mr.
Archibald Dorrimore fork out fifty guineas my name isn't Jeremy
Rofflash."

Shortly after Lavinia set out on her way to Grub Street. Lancelot Vane
was pacing Moor Fields--a depressing tract of land, the grass trodden
down here and there into bare patches, thanks to the games of the London
'prentices and gambols of children--in company with Edmund Curll, the
most scurrilous and audacious of writers and booksellers who looked upon
standing on the pillory, which he had had to do more than once, more as
a splendid form of advertisement than as a degradation.

"You can write what I want if you chose--no man better," he was saying.
Vane was listening not altogether attentively. His thoughts were
elsewhere.

"And supposing I don't choose."

"Then you'll be an arrant fool," sneered Curll angrily. "You're out at
elbows. You haven't a penny to bless yourself with. You don't eat, but
you can always drink provided you run across a friend who by chance has
some money in his pocket. What'll be the end of it all? You'll go
down--down among the dregs of Grub Street and you'll never rise again."

"Not so, Mr. Curll," cried Vane hotly. "I've great hopes. I've a
tragedy----"

"A tragedy! _That_ for your tragedy."

Curll snapped his fingers scornfully.

"Why, my young friend, supposing you get your tragedy staged, it will be
played one night--if extraordinarily successful two nights, or three at
the most. What do you think you will get out of it? Nothing. But perhaps
you fancy yourself a Congreve or a Farquhar?"

"Neither Congreve nor Farquhar wrote tragedies, sir," retorted Vane
stiffly.

"Indeed! What about Mr. Congreve's 'Mourning Bride?'"

"I prefer his comedies, sir."

"And so do I, but that's nothing to the point. May be you consid