"Burn the letter," said Hughes, "and don't waste a minute in thinking about it. You shall go with me to Exeter as soon as the Sadler's Wells season is over, and stop there until it recommences. You shall have four pounds a week all the time, and a clear benefit. It will be strange if this does not turn out better for you than your present engagement at Drury Lane." He accepted the terms so kindly offered, without a moment's hesitation, and determining to be guided by the advice of Mr. Hughes, thought no more about the matter. At Sadler's Wells the summer season went on very briskly until August, when a circumstance occurred which impeded the course of his success for some time, and might have been attended with much more dangerous consequences. He played the first lieutenant of a band of robbers in the before-mentioned "Great Devil,"[31] and in one scene had a pistol secreted in his boot, which, at a certain point of interest, he drew forth, presented at some of the characters on the stage, and fired off, thus producing what is technically termed an effect; in the production of which on the evening of the 14th of August, he very unintentionally presented another effect, the consequences of which confined him to his bed for upwards of a month. While he was in the act of drawing out the pistol, the trigger by some accident caught in the loop of the boot, into which (the muzzle being downwards) its contents were immediately discharged. The boot itself puffed out to a great size, presenting a very laughter-moving appearance to everybody but the individual in it, who was suffering the most excruciating agony. Determined not to mar the effect of the scene, however, by leaving the stage before it was finished, he remained on until its conclusion; and then, when by the assistance of several persons the boot was got off it was found that the explosion had set fire to the stocking, which had been burning slowly all the time he had remained upon the stage; besides which, the wadding was still alight and resting upon the foot. He was taken home and placed under medical care; but the accident confined him to the house for more than a month. At length, after a tedious, and, as it appeared to him then, almost an interminable confinement, he resumed his duties at Sadler's Wells Theatre, and the part also. But the effect was never more produced; for from that time forth the pistol was worn in his belt, in compliance with the established usages of robber-chieftains upon the stage, who, at minor theatres especially, would be quite incomplete and out of character without a very broad black belt, with a huge buckle, and at least two brace of pistols stuck into it.