As for your humble servant, Colonel Jacque, he was a poor, unhappy, tractable dog, willing enough, and capable too, to learn anything, if he had had any but the devil for his schoolmaster. He set out into the world so early, that when he began to do evil, he understood nothing of the wickedness of it, nor what he had to expect for it. I remember very well that when I was once carried before a justice, for a theft which indeed I was not guilty of, and defended myself by argument, proving the mistakes of my accusers, and how they contradicted themselves, the justice told me it was a pity I had not been better employed, for I was certainly better taught; in which, however, his worship was mistaken, for I had never been taught anything but to be a thief; except, as I said, to read and write, and that was all, before I was ten years old; but I had a natural talent of talking, and could say as much to the purpose as most people that had been taught no more than I. I passed among my comrades for a bold, resolute boy, and one that durst fight anything; but I had a different opinion of myself, and therefore shunned fighting as much as I could, though sometimes I ventured too, and came off well, being very strong made and nimble withal. However, I many times brought myself off with my tongue, where my hands would not have been sufficient, and this as well after I was a man as while I was a boy. I was wary and dexterous at my trade, and was not so often catched as my fellow-rogues—I mean while I was a boy, and never after I came to be a man; no, not once for twenty-six years, being so old in the trade, and still unhanged, as you shall hear. As for my person, while I was a dirty glass-bottle-house boy, sleeping in the ashes, and dealing always in the street dirt, it cannot be expected but that I looked like what I was, and so we did all; that is to say, like a “black-your-shoes-your-honour,” a beggar-boy, a blackguard-boy, or what you please, despicable and miserable to the last degree; and yet I remember the people would say of me, “That boy has a good face; if he was washed and well dressed, he would be a good, pretty boy. Do but look; what eyes he has; what a pleasant, smiling countenance! ’Tis a pity. I wonder what the rogue’s father and mother was,” and the like. Then they would call me, and ask me my name, and I would tell them my name was Jacque. “But what’s your surname, sirrah?” says they. “I don’t know,” says I. “Who is your father and mother?” “I have none,” said I. “What, and never had you any?” said they. “No,” says I, “not that I know of.” Then they would shake their heads and cry, “Poor boy!” and “’Tis a pity,” and the like; and so let me go. But I laid up all these things in my heart.