“With all my heart,” said I gayly, “and Dick Turpin’s into the bargain!”

“Ah, sir,” said the man in green, “those are the kind of men for poetry.  The Newgate kalendar, sir! the Newgate kalendar is your only reading!  There’s the place to look for bold deeds and dashing fellows.”

We were so much pleased with each other that we sat until a late hour.  I insisted on paying the bill, for both my purse and my heart were full; and I agreed that he should pay the score at our next meeting.  As the coaches had all gone that run between Hempstead and London he had to return on foot, He was so delighted with the idea of my poem that he could talk of nothing else.  He made me repeat such passages as I could remember, and though I did it in a very mangled manner, having a wretched memory, yet he was in raptures.

Every now and then he would break out with some scrap which he would Misquote most terribly, but would rub his hands and exclaim, “By Jupiter, that’s fine! that’s noble!  Damme, sir, if I can conceive how you hit upon such ideas!”

I must confess I did not always relish his misquotations, which sometimes made absolute nonsense of the passages; but what author stands upon trifles when he is praised?  Never had I spent a more delightful evening.  I did not perceive how the time flew.  I could not bear to separate, but continued walking on, arm in arm with him past my lodgings, through Camden town, and across Crackscull Common, talking the whole way about my poem.

When we were half-way across the common he interrupted me in the midst of a quotation by telling me that this had been a famous place for footpads, and was still occasionally infested by them; and that a man had recently been shot there in attempting to defend himself.

“The more fool he!” cried I.  “A man is an idiot to risk life, or even limb, to save a paltry purse of money.  It’s quite a different case from that of a duel, where one’s honor is concerned.  For my part,” added I, “I should never think of making resistance against one of those desperadoes.”

“Say you so?” cried my friend in green, turning suddenly upon me, and putting a pistol to my breast, “Why, then have at you, my lad!—­come, disburse! empty! unsack!”

In a word, I found that the muse had played me another of her tricks, and had betrayed me into the hands of a footpad.  There was no time to parley; he made me turn my pockets inside out; and hearing the sound of distant footsteps, he made one fell swoop upon purse, watch, and all, gave me a thwack over my unlucky pate that laid me sprawling on the ground; and scampered away with his booty.

I saw no more of my friend in green until a year or two afterwards; when I caught a sight of his poetical countenance among a crew of scapegraces, heavily ironed, who were on the way for transportation.  He recognized me at once, tipped me an impudent wink, and asked me how I came on with the history of Jack Straw’s castle.