were stout fellows and men every inch of them, we scorned to abuse them, and contented ourselves with rifling them of the little Mammon of unrighteousness which they had about them, which amounted to about thirty or forty shillings and their watches.  The rest in the coach, whose hearts were sunk into their breeches, Dick fleeced without the least resistance.

There was one circumstance of this affair which created a little diversion, and therefore with my readers leave, I will relate it.  The Precisions for the most part, though they are plain in their dress, wear the best of commodities, and though a smart toupee[91] is an abomination, yet a bob-wig, or a natural of six or seven guineas’ price, is a modest covering allowed by the saints.  One of the prigs was well furnished in this particular, and flattering myself it would become me, I resolved to make it lawful plunder.  Without any further ceremony, therefore, than alleging exchange was no robbery, I napped his poll, and dressed him immediately in masquerade with an old tie-wig, which I had the day before purchased of an antiquated Chelsea pensioner for half-a-crown.  The other company, though in doleful dumps for the loss of the coriander seed, could not forbear grinning at the merry metamorphis, for our Quaker now looked more like a devil than saint.  As companions in distress ever alleviate its weight, they invited him with a general laugh into their leathern convenience again, wished us a goodnight, and hoped they should have no farther molestation on the road.  We gave then the watch-word, and assured them they should not, then tipped the honest coachman a shilling to drink our healths, and brushed off the ground.

About a week or ten days later, my brother Dick and I projected a new scheme more nimble than the former, to take a purse without the charge of horse hire.  Millington Common was determined to be the scene of action.  We sauntered for some time upon the green and suffered several to pass by without the least molestation, but at last we espied two gentlemen well-mounted coming towards us, who we imagined might be able to replenish our empty purses, so we prepared for an attack.  After the usual salutation, I stopped the foremost and demanded his cash, his watch and other appurtenances thereunto belonging, and assured him I was a brother of an honourable but numerous family; that to work I had no inclination and to beg I was ashamed, and that I had at present no other way for a livelihood, if such a demand at first view ought appear a little immodest or unreasonable, I hoped he would excuse it, as necessity and not choice was the fatal inducement.

My brother Dick was as rhetorical in his apologies with the hindermost, whom he dismounted.  We used them with more good manners and humanity than the common pads, who act for the most part rather like Turks and Jews than Christians, in such enterprises, to the eternal scandal of the profession.