PEACE STRIKING MRS. THOMPSON.
He threatened to kick his stable-boy for not having scrubbed the beast down, but was astonished, on reckoning with himself, to remember that on the previous evening he had both washed and curried the pony with his own hands. In addition to these strange manifestations, the pony from having been a brisk trotting animal suddenly developed a turn for laziness, and was, in fact, as jaded and listless a trotter as could be seen on the road.
The milkman never found the reason why his pony was dispirited. It was Box and Cox in the stable, with the pony in the role of both, and the play lasted three months.
The pony obtained repose when the brutal midnight driver was arrested after his murderous attack on the police-constable at Blackheath. Peace’s pets were not chosen without some regard to his profession.
He had studied dogs; and it is said that, stranger as he must have been in his burglarious prowls about mansions, he never had any difficulty in silencing the most ferocious mastiff or impudent terrier.
It was a sight to see him on a Sunday walking through Peckham, followed by the six dogs that owned him as master.
The impression of the neighbours about his appearance was exceedingly various. When abroad on his raids he was accustomed to stain his face, and some considered him a retired Jew from Ratcliff-highway.
The lower part of his face was mobile to a surprising extent, and he could at will assume a disguise very bewildering.
He allowed it to be understood that his left arm was maimed; he wore across the palm of the hand a dark bandage, and when he sat down to meals he fastened on the arm an apparatus of indiarubber, into which as a socket a fork was secured. It was all a blind to produce the belief that he was weak and helpless.