Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys were both extremely sorry to be obliged so soon to part with a gentleman from whom they confessed they had derived so much pleasure and profit.
The strange gentleman bowed, and proceeded with the promised information. “Well,” said he, “as I before observed, one of the most common and most successful of the flat-catchers’ tricks is, to pretend to put a countryman on his guard against the rogueries of the light-fingered gentry in town. They will tell him long stories, as to how the London thieves are taught to practise upon pockets with bells attached to them, so that they will ring with the least motion; and how it really is not safe for any one to walk the streets with even a sixpence in his possession.”
“Now, beant it keynd of the villans, Aggy, eh?” said Mr. S., jocularly, to his better half.
“When they have thus disarmed the chawbacon of all suspicion, they will begin to show him—as a great secret of course—where they keep their money.”
“Nae, will they now!”
“Some will let him see how they’ve got it stitched in the waistband of their trowsers, while others will pull theirs from their fob, declaring they were told by one of the most experienced police-officers that it was quite as safe, and even safer, there than if it were sewed to their breeches, provided—and on this, sir, I would impress upon you that the trick mainly lies—it is rolled up quite tight, and then slipped into the watch-pocket edgewise, in a peculiar way. Whereupon they very kindly offer to put the countryman’s money in his fob, and to stow it away for him as safely as the experienced police-officer had done theirs.”
“Yes, varra keyndly! varra! and preyme and seafe they’ll staw it awa’, I’ll be baund.”
“Now, if you’ll allow me your purse, sir, for one moment, I’ll show you how the whole affair is managed.”
Mr. Sandboys drew forth from the pocket of his trowsers the little red-cotton bag in which he carried his stock of gold and notes, and handed it over, as requested, to his fellow-traveller, saying, “Ise varra ’bleeged, I’se sure; an’ how I’ll ever pay tha for all thy guidness, I dunnet ken. Beant it keynd of t’ gentleman, now, Aggy?”
But that lady made no reply; she merely watched, with intense interest, the operations of the strange gentleman.