"Do you?" rejoined the man, with a laugh at the absurdity of such a statement from a customer so apparently respectable as Peace; "I wish, then, you would steal me some more."
"I will!" said Peace; and he did. He had the effrontery to again burgle the place whence his original supply had come.
"Here," he said in a day or two, giving the shopkeeper a box full, "are the cigars I promised to steal for you." The delighted recipient thought how exquisitely his customer's kindness and humour blended.
There is nothing neater in all the history of highwaymen than this anecdote, twinkling brightly amid the matter-of-fact records of a degenerate day.
There is plentiful evidence that when Captain Alexander Smith in 1719-20 wrote and published his work upon the highwaymen and other evil-doers, he based his book upon the many chapbooks and broadsides then in existence. Many of them may even now be found by those who do not mind searching for them, but whether they will repay the trouble is quite another matter. He includes in his gallery even Robin Hood and Sir John Falstaff; and, not concerned to point out their legendary or merely literary character, gives an exact (though necessarily not a truthful) biography of each.
Several editions of Smith exist; some in three, others in two volumes. The title-pages vary largely, but all are extremely lengthy, and so curious that it is well worth while to reproduce one as on the next page.
A Compleat
HISTORY
of the
LIVES AND ROBBERIES
of the most Notorious
Highway-Men, Foot-Pads, Shop-Lifts,
and Cheats of both Sexes, in and about
London and Westminster, and all Parts of
Great Britain, for above an Hundred Years
past, continu'd to the present Time.
Wherein their most Secret and Barbarous Murders,
Unparalell'd Robberies, Notorious Thefts,
and Unheard of Cheats, are set in a true Light,
and Expos'd to publick View, for the common
Benefit of Mankind.
To which is prefix'd,
The Thieves New Canting-Dictionary,
Explaining the most mysterious Words,
New Terms, Significant Phrases, and Proper
Idioms, used at this present Time by
our Modern Thieves.