“At last the rest of the company, finding the gentleman so positive over the business, get to say they don’t mind being robbed on the same terms, and accordingly agree to bet him a sovereign or a crown all round, that the paper has no salt in it; whereupon the gentleman with the toothache, who has managed during the laughter at his expense to substitute the other packet from his pocket for the one lying on the table, proceeds to unfold the paper—exhibits the salt contained in it to the astonished company, and then robs them—as he candidly confessed he would—of their money.” Mr. Sandboys had now heard so much, that he began to shudder at the idea of trusting himself within several miles of such wickedness, and felt strongly inclined to propose to his wife that they should return. However, not liking to confess his weakness, he again thanked his experienced companion, declaring that he considered their meeting one of the luckiest adventures in his life. What he had heard, he told him, would at least have the effect of putting him on his guard, and he would take good care, now he knew the artful ways of the rogues, that none of the London rascals should have an opportunity of imposing upon him, “Now, there’s another very common trick practised by the flat-catchers upon countrymen in London, with the greatest success,” continued the loquacious strange gentleman. He should just have time to put Mr. Sandboys up to this, he added, before they reached the next station, where, he regretted to say, he should be compelled to leave him and his charming family. He expected, he said, as he poked Mr. Sandboys in the ribs, and winked his eye at him, to fall in with a party there whom he had been looking after these many months, for nailing a prop with a spark in it. 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!”