Whether I had better fortune next time is more than I can recollect There were so many “times,” some good, some middling, and some very bad indeed. Not that I was allowed to remain for any time in undisturbed pursuit of my new trade of pocket-picking.
Not more than two months. Indifferent as was my fortune within that time, (and it must be plain to the most honest person that the less a pickpocket gets the greater risk he runs, as those are the poorest pockets that are closest kept,) the devil was so good-natured towards me that I was enabled to get rid of the poor clothes the Ilford police had supplied me with in lieu of my wet and sooty rags, and provide myself with decent attire. Moreover, it was not a “bad time” that led to a marvellous and unexpected change in my fortunes, but to the best time it was ever my lot to fall on.
I had shifted from the soup-shop, and was lodging in Wentworth Street, Whitechapel. In the dusk of a July evening I was taking a stroll down Cheapside and the Poultry, (being “respectable,” I could make an appearance in respectable places, you see,) and at the last-mentioned place saw an old gentleman busily inspecting the contents of a hosier’s shop. He was one of the easiest sort of old gentlemen for a pickpocket to operate on, being so stout that when he stooped his coat-tails hung fairly away from his body. By this time I had been long enough at the “trade” to know that little is to be gleaned from coat-tail pockets. People don’t carry valuables there; they may, perhaps, deposit their spectacle-case there, (and if the glasses have gold rims, the catch is, of course, a tolerably good one,) but as a rule, nothing is to be found therein, but a pocket-handkerchief, or some little odd and trumpery parcel bought to carry home. It was seldom after the first fortnight that I ventured to touch a coat-tail pocket, but that of the old gentleman in question looked so particularly tempting—so curiously easy of access—that it seemed a pity to let even so much as sixpen’orth escape in it Brushing past him, I weighted the tail, and found that it contained, as well as a handkerchief, something hard, and square, and lumpish. This was nothing, however—it might have been no more than a cake of breakfast cocoa. I turned about and dipped, nevertheless, and, to my joyful amazement, pulled out a handsome brown leather pocket-book. I had found purses and loose money, and money wrapped in paper in pockets before; but a pocket-book never. Trembling with delight, I hurried down a bystreet, and stealthily unclasping the book, peeped into it by the light of a street lamp, and saw within it some folded bank-notes, and quite a nest of loose gold. I was so completely astonished, that for several seconds after I had made the discovery I stood with the book in my hand and partly concealed up my jacket sleeve, not knowing which way to turn.
The question was decided for me. I could have solemnly declared that no one had followed me out of the Poultry and into the by-street. In momentary dread of pursuit, it stood to reason that I should not be careless in this respect; nevertheless, as though he had sprung out of the ground, a man was suddenly beside me with his hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t run; it’s no use,” said he.
As though it had been something that burnt, I dropped the pocket-book into the gutter, and turned about, fully expecting to find that my
captor was either a policeman or the old gentleman on whom I had committed the theft It was neither one nor the other; to my great astonishment it was a strange gentleman—a tall gentleman, dressed handsomely, with a kid glove on one hand and a flashing ring on the bare hand that held me by the collar. As coolly as though it were his own property, he picked up the book and put it in his own pocket.
“There’s no mistake about the saying that the biggest fools have the best luck,” he observed, still retaining his hold on my collar, and marching me farther down the dark street “Please, sir, I found it; it’s no use to me, sir; you can keep it, sir, if you’ve got a mind to,” I exclaimed, in a terrible fright, and scarcely knowing what I said.
“Course you found it; d——n it! you never worked for it, unless you call such bungling as you have just shown a sample of work,” sneered the mysterious gentleman.
“You may have it, sir; p’r’aps it’s yours, sir; p’r’aps it was you as dropped it, sir,” I insinuated, hoping to furnish the gentleman with an excuse for walking off with the pocket-book, and letting me go about my business.
“Who are you working for?” asked the gentleman, abruptly, when we had got well down the street.
The gentleman takes me for an honest errand-boy, thought I. “Please, sir, I works at—at—a box-maker’s down Whitechapel way,” I replied, endeavouring to look like an innocent box-maker’s boy.
“What d’yer mean?” observed the gentleman, in a growling tone I should have thought him incapable of. “Who are you working for, I asked you, didn’t I? Are you one of Spendlow’s gang, or are you one of Nosey Simmonds’s boys?”
I knew, now, that he wasn’t a gentleman, and my courage rose. “I ain’t neither one nor the t’other,” I answered. “You let me alone; that’s the best thing you can do.”
“Then you come from Tom Martin’s?”
“I don’t know Tom Martin. Jest you leave go my collar. I don’t want the pocket-book, but just you let go, will yer?”
“I’ll twist your infernal young neck, if you don’t keep still,” replied he, giving me a shake. “If you don’t work for them I’ve named, who do you work for?”
“Nobody, if you must know,” said I, finding that it was best to be civil to him.
“Nobody! do you mean to tell me that you are working on your own hook?”
“Nobody’s else’s.”
He left go my collar for a moment, and gazed at me as though he more than doubted my assertion.
“Look here, my lad,” said be, bending down so as to be able to whisper to me; you may think to gammon me, but I tell you that if you do you will be the first boy that ever did do it. Let’s have the truth, now. If you have got a master, why, tell me, and there’s no harm done; if you haven’t, tell me, and p’r’aps I might stand your friend.”
“You ain’t a policeman, then?”
“A what?”
“A policeman; you ain’t nothing in the perlice? not a detective or nothing in that line?”
The gentleman laughed.
“Don’t say another word.” said he; “am I anything in the police, indeed! You are a nice sort of chap to try your hand at stilting,” (first-class pocket-picking!) “Why, what d’yer mean by it?. How long have you been about?”
“Two months,” I replied, perceiving that there was nothing to be gained by concealing my business from him.
“Started green, and been at it about two months—reg’ler working?”
“Alwis workin’.”
“Never once been nabbed?”
“Not once.”
“Then you’re a lucky fellow, that’s all I’ve got to say about it,” replied the gentleman laughing again, as though he saw something astonishingly funny in my statement “You ought, by rights, to have been nabbed the first nibble, for you certainly are about the greatest dunce at the trade I ever did meet. It’s high time that somebody took you in hand. Come along with me.”