Our whole family smarted in his punishment, my father sighed, my mother sobbed, and I wanted my part of those dainty morsels, which his theft furnished us withall, for by him my father drave a pretty trade; having those who always furnished him with ready money for whatsoever he brought, and indeed his loss would have utterly disconsolated my father, but the great hopes that he had in mee, who was now come to the same age that my brother was of when he first began to exercise his gifts in the mystery of theivery; and that I might tread the same steps that my brother had done before me, my father (upon a certain day, when my mother and he and I were alone by our selves) began thus for to endoctrinate me. My son (said he) the profession of a thief is not of so base repute as the world gives it out, considering what brave men have in former times exercised themselves in this way: I have heard the Clerk of our parish say, who I assure you was a well read man, that _Robin Hood_ that famous thief was in his yonger dayes Earl of _Huntingdon_; and that _Alexander the Great_ was no better then a thief in robbing other Princes of their Kingdoms and Crowns. (_This it seems he spake in vindication of the Sexton, who used to rob the dead corps of their sheets and shirts, and those other necessaries which they carried along with them in their voyage to heaven._) I tell thee he who steales not, knows not how to live in this world, nay doth not almost each thing in the world teach us for to steal? doe we not see youth steal upon infancy, manhood steale upon youth, and old age upon manhood, until at last death stealeth upon us undiscern’d and bringeth us to our long homes: How doth summer steal on the spring, autumn on summer, and winter on autumn, untill all the whole year is stole out of our sight. Pray what doe rich Farmers and griping Cormorants, but steal when they exact in their prices of corn, and grind the faces of the poor; and how can shop-keepers wipe off the aspersion of theft from themselves when they sell a commodity for twice the worth of it, and thereby cozen the buyer; so that we see if things be rightly scanned, there be more thieves in the world than only Taylors, Millers, and Weavers. And what I pray you makes Serjants, Bayliffs, and Catchpoles so to envy us, and persecute us as they doe, but that one trade still envies and malignes another; and would by their good wills suffer no other theives but themselves; this it is that makes them so double diligent in the surprizal of us, though oftentimes our craft forestals their malice, as I shall instance to you in one memorable example.