Todd's Adventure With The Smugglers.
Todd lowered his pistol.
"This is a foolish enough mistake," he said, "I am no more an exciseman than I am Commander-in-chief of the forces. What could have put such a thing into your heads?"
"Say you so?" cried the other. "But how will you make us believe it? That's the question."
"Well," said Todd, putting on a very candid look, "I don't know how a man is to set about proving that he is not an exciseman. I only know that I am not. The real truth is, that I am in debt, and being pressed by my creditors, have thought proper to get out of their way; and so I want to make the best of my way to Gravesend, that is all. I fancy, by your anger at the idea of my being an exciseman, that you are smugglers; and if so, I can only say that, with all my heart, you may go on smuggling with the greatest success until the day of judgment, before I would interfere with you in the matter."
"Dare we believe him?" said one of the men to the other.
"I hardly know," replied the other; "and yet it would be rather a sad thing to take a man's life, when it might turn out that he was not what we took him for."
"How on earth am I to convince you?" said Todd.
"Where do you want to go to?"
"I want to get on board some vessel, I don't care what, so that it is bound to some continental port. My object, I tell you, is to get away, and that is all."