Colonel Jack

The major knew nothing of the trade, and therefore was to do nothing; but they promised him a share with them for all that, as if he had been as expert as themselves. So away they went. The two dexterous young rogues managed it so well that by eight o’clock at night they came back to our dusty quarters at the glass-house, and, sitting them down in a corner, they began to share their spoil, by the light of the glasshouse fire. The major lugged out the goods, for as fast as they made any purchase they unloaded themselves, and gave all to him, that, if they had been taken, nothing might be found about them.

It was a devilish lucky day to them, the devil certainly assisting them to find their prey, that he might draw in a young gamester, and encourage him to the undertaking, who had been made backward before by the misfortune of the captain. The list of their purchase the first night was as follows: —

1. A white handkerchief from a country wench, as she was staring up at a jack-pudding; there was 3s. 6d. and a row of pins tied up in one end of it.

2. A coloured handkerchief, out of a young country fellow’s pocket as he was buying a china orange.

3. A riband purse with 11s. 3d. and a silver thimble in it, out of a young woman’s pocket, just as a fellow offered to pick her up.

N.B. – She missed her purse presently, but, not seeing the thief, charged the man with it that would have picked her up, and cried out, «A pickpocket!» and he fell into the hands of the mob, but, being known in the street, he got off with great difficulty.

4. A knife and fork, that a couple of boys had just bought and were going home with; the young rogue that took it got it within the minute after the boy had put it in his pocket.

5. A little silver box with 7s. in it, all in small silver, 1d., 2d., 3d., 4d. pieces.

N.B. – This, it seems, a maid pulled out of her pocket, to pay at her going into the booth to see a show, and the little rogue got his hand in and fetched it off, just as she put it up again.

6. Another silk handkerchief, out of a gentleman’s pocket.

7. Another.

8. A jointed baby and a little looking-glass, stolen off a toy-seller’s stall in the fair.

All this cargo to be brought home clear in one afternoon, or evening rather, and by only two little rogues so young, was, it must be confessed, extraordinary; and the major was elevated the next day to a strange degree.

He came very early to me, who lay not far from him, and said to me, «Colonel Jacque, I want to speak with you». «Well», said I, «what do you say?» «Nay», said he, «it is business of consequence; 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 we call soaking, and then all was over; and we made nothing of having our rags wetted a little; but I never understood, till a great while after, that the crime was capital, and that we might be sent to Newgate for it, till a great fellow, almost a man, one of our society, was hanged for it; and then I was terribly frighted, as you shall hear by-and-by.

Well, upon the persuasions of this lad, I walked out with him; a poor innocent boy, and (as I remember my very thoughts perfectly well) I had no evil in my intentions. I had never stolen anything in my life; and if a goldsmith had left me in his shop, with heaps of money strewed all round me, and bade me look after it, I should not have touched it, I was so honest; but the subtle tempter baited his hook for me, as I was a child, in a manner suited to my childishness, for I never took this picking of pockets to be dishonesty, but, as I have said above, I looked on it as a kind of trade that I was to be bred up to, and so I entered upon it, till I became hardened in it beyond the power of retreating. And thus I was made a thief involuntarily, and went on a length that few boys do, without coming to the common period of that kind of life – I mean to the transport-ship, or to the gallows.

The first day I went abroad with my new instructor, he carried me directly into the city, and as we went first to the water-side, he led me into the long-room at the custom-house. We were but a couple of ragged boys at best, but I was much the worse. My leader had a hat on, a shirt, and a neckcloth; as for me, I had neither of the three, nor had I spoiled my manners so much as to have a hat on my head since my nurse died, which was now some years. His orders to me were to keep always in sight, and near him, but not close to him, nor to take any notice of him at any time till he came to me; and if any hurly-burly happened, I should by no means know him, or pretend to have anything to do with him.

I observed my orders to a tittle. While he peered into every corner and had his eye upon everybody, I kept my eye directly upon him, but went always at a distance, and on the other side of the long-room, looking as it were for pins, and picking them up out of the dust as I could find them, and then sticking them on my sleeve, where I had at last gotten forty or fifty good pins; but still my eye was upon my comrade, who, I observed, was very busy among the crowds of people that stood at the board doing business with the officers who pass the entries and make the cockets, &c.

At length he comes over to me, and stooping as if he would take up a pin close to me, he put some thing into my hand, and said, «Put that up, and follow me downstairs quickly». He did not run, but shuffled along apace through the crowd, and went down, not the great stairs which we came in at, but a little narrow staircase at the other end of the long-room. I followed, and he found I did, and so went on, not stopping below, as I expected, nor speaking one word to me, till, through innumerable narrow passages, alleys, and dark ways, we were got up into Fenchurch Street, and through Billiter Lane into Leadenhall Street, and from thence into Leadenhall Market.

It was not a meat-market day, so we had room to sit down upon one of the butchers’ stalls, and he bid me lug out. What he had given me was a little leather letter-case, with a French almanac stuck in the inside of it, and a great many papers in it of several kinds.

We looked them over, and found there was several valuable bills in it, such as bills of exchange and other notes, things I did not understand; but among the rest was a goldsmith’s note, as he called it, of one Sir Stephen Evans, for £ 300, payable to the bearer, and at demand. Besides this, there was another note for £ 12, 10s., being a goldsmith’s bill too, but I forget the name. There was a bill or two also written in French, which neither of us understood, but which, it seems, were things of value, being called foreign bills accepted.

The rogue, my master, knew what belonged to the goldsmiths’ bills well enough, and I observed, when he read the bill of Sir Stephen, he said, «This is too big for me to meddle with»; but when he came to the bill £ 12, 10s., he said to me, «This will do. Come hither, Jacque»; so away he runs to Lombard Street, and I after him, huddling the other papers into the letter-case. As he went along he inquired the name out immediately, and went directly to the shop, put on a good, grave countenance, and had the money paid him without any stop or question asked. I stood on the other side the way looking about the street, as not at all concerned with anybody that way, but observed that when he presented the bill he pulled out the letter-case, as if he had been a merchant’s boy, acquainted with business, and had other bills about him.

They paid him the money in gold, and he made haste enough in telling it over, and came away, passing by me, and going into Three King Court, on the other side of the way; then we crossed back into Clement’s Lane, made the best of our way to Cole Harbour, at the water-side, and got a sculler for a penny to carry us over the water to St. Mary Overy’s stairs, where we landed, and were safe enough.

Here he turns to me; «Colonel Jacque», says he, «I believe you are a lucky boy; this is a good job. We’ll go away to St. George’s Fields and share our booty». Away we went to the Fields, and sitting down in the grass, far enough out of the path, he pulled out the money. «Look here, Jacque», says he, «did you ever see the like before in your life?» «No, never», says I; and added very innocently, «Must we have it all?» «We have it!» says he, «who should have it?» «Why», says I, «must the man have none of it again that lost it?» «He have it again!» says he. «What d’ye mean by that?» «Nay, I don’t know», says I. «Why, you said just now you would let him have the t’other bill again, that you said was too big for you».

He laughed at me. «You are but a little boy», says he, «that’s true, but I thought you had not been such a child neither»; so he mighty gravely explained the thing to me thus: that the bill of Sir Stephen Evans was a great bill for £ 300, «and if I», says he, «that am but a poor lad, should venture to go for the money, they will presently say, how should I come by such a bill, and that I certainly found it or stole it; so they will stop me», says he, «and take it away from me, and it may bring me into trouble for it too; so», says he, «I did say it was too big for me to meddle with, and that I would let the man have it again, if I could tell how. But for the money, Jacque, the money that we have got, I warrant you he should have none of that. Besides», says he, «whoever he be that has lost this letter-case, to be sure, as soon as he missed it, he would run to the goldsmith and give notice that if anybody came for the money they would be stopped; but I am too old for him there», says he.

«Why», says I, «and what will you do with the bill? Will you throw it away? If you do, somebody else will find it», says I, «and they will go and take the money». «No, no», says he; «then they will be stopped and examined, as I tell you I should be». I did not know well what all this meant, so I talked no more about that; but we fell to handling the money. As for me, I had never seen so much together in all my life, nor did I know what in the world to do with it, and once or twice I was a-going to bid him keep it for me, which would have been done like a child indeed, for, to be sure, I had never heard a word more of it, though nothing had befallen him.

However, as I happened to hold my tongue as to that part, he shared the money very honestly with me; only at the end he told me, that though it was true he promised me half, yet as it was the first time, and I had done nothing but look on, so he thought it was very well if I took a little less than he did; so he divided the money, which was £ 12, 10s., into two exact parts, viz., £ 6, 5s. in each part; then he took £ 1, 5s. from my part, and told me I should give him that for hansel. «Well», says I, «take it, then, for I think you deserve it all:» so, however, I took up the rest, and «What shall I do with this now», says I, «for I have nowhere to put it?» «Why, have you no pockets?» says he. «Yes», says I; «but they are full of holes». I have often thought since that, and with some mirth too, how I had really more wealth than I knew what to do with; for lodging I had none, nor any box or drawer to hide my money in; nor had I any pocket, but such as I say was full of holes. I knew nobody in the world that I could go and desire them to lay it up for me; for, being a poor naked, ragged boy, they would presently say I had robbed somebody, and perhaps lay hold of me, and my money would be my crime, as they say it often is in foreign countries. And now, as I was full of wealth, behold I was full of care, for what to do to secure my money I could not tell; and this held me so long, and was so vexatious to me the next day, that I truly sat down and cried.

Nothing could be more perplexing than this money was to me all that night. I carried it in my hand a good while, for it was in gold, all but 14s.; and that is to say, it was in four guineas, and that 14s. was more difficult to carry than the four guineas. At last I sat down and pulled off one of my shoes, and put the four guineas into that; but after I had gone a while, my shoe hurt me so I could not go, so I was fain to sit down again and take it out of my shoe, and carry it in my hand. Then I found a dirty linen rag in the street, and I took that up and wrapped it all together, and carried it in that a good way. I have often since heard people say, when they have been talking of money that they could not get in, «I wish I had it in a foul clout»; in truth, I had mine in a foul clout; for it was foul, according to the letter of that saying, but it served me till I came to a convenient place, and then I sat down and washed the cloth in the kennel, and so then put my money in again.

Well, I carried it home with me to my lodging in the glasshouse, and when I went to go to sleep I knew not what to do with it. If I had let any of the black crew I was with know of it, I should have been smothered in the ashes for it, or robbed of it, or some trick or other put upon me for it; so I knew not what to do, but lay with it in my hand, and my hand in my bosom. But then sleep went from my eyes. Oh, the weight of human care! I, a poor beggar-boy, could not sleep so soon as I had but a little money to keep, who before that could have slept upon a heap of brick-bats, or stones, or cinders, or anywhere, as sound as a rich man does on his down bed, and sounder too.

Every now and then dropping asleep, I should dream that my money was lost, and start like one frighted; then, finding it fast in my hand, try to go to sleep again, but could not for a long while; then drop and start again. At last a fancy came into my head that if I fell asleep I should dream of the money, and talk of it in my sleep, and tell that I had money, which if I should do, and one of the rogues should hear me, they would pick it out of my bosom, and of my hand too, without waking me; and after that thought I could not sleep a wink more; so that I passed that night over in care and anxiety enough; and this, I may safely say, was the first night’s rest that I lost by the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches.

As soon as it was day I got out of the hole we lay in, and rambled abroad in the fields towards Stepney, and there I mused and considered what I should do with this money, and many a time I wished that I had not had it; for, after all my ruminating upon it, and what course I should take with it, or where I should put it, I could not hit upon any one thing, or any possible method to secure it, and it perplexed me so that at last, as I said just now, I sat down and cried heartily.

When my crying was over the case was the same; I had the money still, and what to do with it I could not tell. At last it came into my head that I would look out for some hole in a tree, and seek to hide it there till I should have occasion for it. Big was this discovery, as I then thought it. I began to look about me for a tree; but there were no trees in the fields about Stepney or Mile End that looked fit for my purpose; and if there were any that I began to look narrowly at, the fields were so full of people that they would see if I went to hide any thing there; and I thought the people eyed me as it was, and that two men in particular followed me to see what I intended to do.

This drove me farther off, and I crossed the road at Mile End, and in the middle of the town went down a lane that goes away to the Blind Beggar’s at Bethnal Green. When I came a little way in the lane I found a footpath over the fields, and in those fields several trees for my turn, as I thought. At last one tree had a little hole in it, pretty high out of my reach, and I climbed up the tree to get it, and when I came there I put my hand in, and found (as I thought) a place very fit, so I placed my treasure there, and was mighty well satisfied with it; but, behold, putting my hand in again to lay it more commodiously, as I thought, of a sudden it slipped away from me, and I found the tree was hollow, and my little parcel was fallen in quite out of my reach, and how far it might go in I knew not; so that, in a word, my money was quite gone, irrecoverably lost. There could be no room so much as to hope ever to see it again, for ‘twas a vast great tree.