I finished my cake quietly, after that. Then, as the tide was not yet making, to help me back up the river, I wandered into Wapping fields, where a gang of beggars camped. They were a dirtier, more troublesome company than the worst of the Oulton gipsies. They crowded round me, whining about their miseries, with the fawning smiles of professional beggars. There were children among them who lied about their wants as glibly as their parents lied. The Oulton beggars had taught me to refuse such people, as being, nearly always, knaves; so I said that I had nothing for them. I felt the hands of these thieves lightly feeling the outsides of my pockets for something worth taking. One of them with a sudden thrust upon me snatched my handkerchief. He tossed it to a friend. As he started to run from me, a young man with an evil, weak face pushed me backwards with a violent shove. I staggered back, from the push, to fall over a boy who had crouched behind me there, ready to upset me. When I got up, rather shaken from my fall, the dirty gang was scattering to its burrow; for they lived, like beasts, in holes scratched in the ground, thatched over with sacks or old clothes. I hurried back toward Wapping in the hope of finding a constable to recover my handkerchief for me. The constable (when I found him) refused to stir until I made it worth his while. Sixpence was his fee, he said, but he was sure that a handsome young gentleman like myself would not grudge a sixpence to recover a handkerchief. On searching for my purse (in which I had about two shillings) I found that that had gone, too, “nicked” by these thieves. I told the Constable that my purse had been stolen. “Oh,” he said. “How much was in it?” I told him. “Could you describe the man who took it?” “No.” I said. “I did not see the man take it.” “Then how do you know that anybody took it?” Of course I did not know that anybody had taken it but thought it highly probable. “That won't do here,” he said, settling down in his chair to his tobacco. “I'll look into it. If I hear of it, why, next time you come here, you shall have it.” “But my handkerchief,” I said. “Sixpence is my fee,” the brute answered. “Do you want to rob a poor man of his earnings? Why, what a rogue you must be, young master.” I tried to move him to recover my handkerchief, but without success. At last, growing weary of the sound of my pipe, as he said, he rounded on me. “If you don't run away 'ome,” he said, “I'll commit you for a nuisance. Think I'm goin' to be bothered by yer. Be off, now.”