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I cannot talk here»; so we walked out. As soon as we were come out into a narrow lane by the glasshouse, «Look here», says he, and pulls out his little hand almost full of money.
I was surprised at the sight, when he puts it up again, and, bringing his hand out, «Here», says he, «you shall have some of it»; and gives me a sixpence and a shilling’s worth of the small silver pieces. This was very welcome to me, who, as much as I was of a gentleman, and as much as I thought of myself upon that account, never had a shilling of money together before in all my life, not that I could call my own.
I was very earnest then to know how he came by this wealth, for he had for his share 7s. 6d. in money, the silver thimble, and a silk handkerchief, which was, in short, an estate to him, that never had, as I said of myself, a shilling together in his life.
«And what will you do with it now, Jacque?» said I. «I do?» says he. «The first thing I do I’ll go into Rag Fair and buy me a pair of shoes and stockings». «That’s right», says I, «and so will I too»; so away we went together, and we bought each of us a pair of Rag Fair stockings in the first place for fivepence; not fivepence a pair, but fivepence together; and good stockings they were too, much above our wear, I assure you.
We found it more difficult to fit ourselves with shoes; but at last, having looked a great while before we could find any good enough for us, we found a shop very well stored, and of these we bought two pair for sixteenpence.
We put them on immediately, to our great comfort, for we had neither of us had any stockings to our legs that had any feet to them for a long time. I found myself so refreshed with having a pair of warm stockings on, and a pair of dry shoes – things, I say, which I had not been acquainted with a great while – that I began to call to my mind my being a gentleman, and now I thought it began to come to pass. When we had thus fitted ourselves I said, «Hark ye, Major Jacque, you and I never had any money in our lives before, and we never had a good dinner in all our lives. What if we should go somewhere and get some victuals? I am very hungry».
«So we will, then», says the major; «I am hungry too». So we went to a boiling cook’s in Rosemary Lane, where we treated ourselves nobly, and, as I thought with myself, we began to live like gentlemen, for we had three pennyworth of boiled beef, two pennyworth of pudding, a penny brick (as they call it, or loaf), and a whole pint of strong beer, which was sevenpence in all.
N.B. – We had each of us a good mess of charming beef-broth into the bargain; and, which cheered my heart wonderfully, all the while we were at dinner, the maid and the boy in the house, every time they passed by the open box where we sat at our dinner, would look in and cry, «Gentlemen, do you call?» and «Do ye call, gentlemen?» I say, this was as good to me as all my dinner.
Not the best housekeeper in Stepney parish, not my Lord Mayor of London, no, not the greatest man on earth, could be more happy in their own imagination, and with less mixture of grief or reflection, than I was at this new piece of felicity; though mine was but a small part of it, for Major Jacque had an estate compared to me, as I had an estate compared to what I had before; in a word, nothing but an utter ignorance of greater felicity, which was my case, could make anybody think himself so exalted as I did, though I had no share of this booty but eighteenpence.
That night the major and I triumphed in our new enjoyment, and slept with an undisturbed repose in the usual place, surrounded with the warmth of the glass-house fires above, which was a full amends for all the ashes and cinders which we rolled in below.
Those who know the position of the glass-houses, and the arches where they neal the bottles after they are made, know that those places where the ashes are cast, and where the poor boys lie, are cavities in the brickwork, perfectly close, except at the entrance, and consequently warm as the dressing-room of a bagnio, that it is impossible they can feel any cold there, were it in Greenland or Nova Zembla, and that therefore the boys lie there not only safe, but very comfortably, the ashes excepted, which are no grievance at all to them.
The next day the major and his comrades went abroad again, and were still successful; nor did any disaster attend them, for I know not how many months; and, by frequent imitation and direction, Major Jacque became as dexterous a pickpocket as any of them, and went on through a long variety of fortunes, too long to enter upon now, because I am hastening to my own story, which at present is the main thing I have to set down.
The major failed not to let me see every day the effects of his new prosperity, and was so bountiful as frequently to throw me a tester, sometimes a shilling; and I might perceive that he began to have clothes on his back, to leave the ash-hole, having gotten a society lodging (of which I may give an explanation by itself on another occasion); and which was more, he took upon him to wear a shirt, which was what neither he or I had ventured to do for three years before, and upward.
But I observed all this while, that though Major Jacque was so prosperous and had thriven so well, and notwithstanding he was very kind, and even generous, to me, in giving me money upon many occasions, yet he never invited me to enter myself into the society or to embark with him, whereby I might have been made as happy as he; no, nor did he recommend the employment to me at all.
I was not very well pleased with his being thus reserved to me. I had learned from him in general that the business was picking of pockets, and I fancied that though the ingenuity of the trade consisted very much in sleight-of-hand, a good address, and being very nimble, yet that it was not at all difficult to learn; and, especially, I thought the opportunities were so many, the country people that come to London so foolish, so gaping, and so engaged in looking about them, that it was a trade with no great hazard annexed to it, and might be easily learned, if I did but know in general the manner of it, and how they went about it.
The subtle devil, never absent from his business, but ready at all occasions to encourage his servants, removed all these difficulties, and brought him into an intimacy with one of the most exquisite divers, or pickpockets, in the town; and this, our intimacy, was of no less a kind than that, as I had an inclination to be as wicked as any of them, he was for taking care that I should not be disappointed.
He was above the little fellows who went about stealing trifles and baubles in Bartholomew Fair, and ran the risk of being mobbed for three or four shillings. His aim was at higher things, even at no less than considerable sums of money, and bills for more.
He solicited me earnestly to go and take a walk with him as above, adding that after he had shown me my trade a little, he would let me be as wicked as I would; that is, as he expressed it, that after he had made me capable, I should set up for myself, if I pleased, and he would only wish me good luck.
Accordingly, as Major Jacque went with his gentlemen only to see the manner, and receive the purchase, and yet come in for a share; so he told me, if he had success, I should have my share as much as if I had been principal; and this he assured me was a custom of the trade, in order to encourage young beginners, and bring them into the trade with courage, for that nothing was to be done if a man had not the heart of the lion.
I hesitated at the matter a great while, objecting the hazard, and telling the story of Captain Jacque, my elder brother, as I might call him. «Well, colonel», says he, «I find you are faint-hearted, and to be faint-hearted is indeed to be unfit for our trade, for nothing but a bold heart can go through stitch with this work; but, however, as there is nothing for you to do, so there is no risk for you to run in these things the first time. If I am taken», says he, «you have nothing to do in it; they will let you go free; for it shall easily be made appear, that whatever I have done, you had no hand in it».
Upon these persuasions I ventured out with him; but I soon found that my new friend was a thief of quality, and a pickpocket above the ordinary rank, and that aimed higher abundantly than my brother Jacque. He was a bigger boy than I a great deal; for though I was now near fifteen years old, I was not big of my age; and as to the nature of the thing, I was perfectly a stranger to it. I knew indeed what at first I did not, for it was a good while before I understood the thing as an offence. I looked on picking pockets as a kind of trade, and thought I was to go apprentice to it. It is true this was when I was young in the society, as well as younger in years, but even now I understood it to be only a thing for which, if we were catched, we ran the risk of being ducked or pumped, which