The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel JackDefoe, Daniel
General
The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack
Defoe, Daniel
Adventure stories, English; England -- Social life and customs -- 18th century -- Fiction; Picaresque fiction
It struck me with a strange kind of joy that I should have a place to
put my money in, and need not go to hide it again in a hollow tree,
that I was ready to snatch the breeches out of her hands, and wondered
that I should be such a fool never to think of buying me a pair of
breeches before, that I might have a pocket to put my money in, and not
carry it about two days together in my hand, and in my shoes and I knew
not how; so, in a word, I gave her two shillings for the breeches, and
went over into the churchyard and put them on, put my money into my new
pockets, and was as pleased as a prince is with his coach and six
horses. I thanked the good woman too for the hat, and told her I would
come again when I got more money, and buy some other things I wanted;
and so I came away.
I was but a boy, ’tis true, but I thought myself a man, now I had got a
pocket to put my money in, and I went directly to find out my companion
by whose means I got it; but I was frighted out of my wits when I heard
that he was carried to Bridewell. I made no question but it was for the
letter-case, and that I should be carried there too; and then my poor
brother Captain Jacque’s case came into my head, and that I should be
whipped there as cruelly as he was, and I was in such a fright that I
knew not what to do.
But in the afternoon I met him; he had been carried to Bridewell, it
seems, upon that very affair, but was got out again. The case was thus:
having had such good luck at the custom-house the day before, he takes
his walk thither again, and as he was in the long-room, gaping and
staring about him, a fellow lays hold of him, and calls to one of the
clerks that sat behind, “Here,” says he, “is the same young rogue that
I told you I saw loitering about t’other day, when the gentleman lost
his letter-case and his goldsmiths’ bills; I dare say it was he that
stole them.” Immediately the whole crowd of people gathered about the
boy, and charged him point-blank; but he was too well used to such
things to be frighted into a confession of what he knew they could not
prove, for he had nothing about him belonging to it, nor had any money
but six pence and a few dirty farthings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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