But it came into his thoughts to take another course. “Come,” says Will, “I’ll go back to the alley, and see if I can hear anything of what has happened, for I believe the hurry is not over yet.” It seems the man who lost the book was carried into the King’s Head tavern at the end of that alley, and a great crowd was about the door. Away goes Will, and watches and waits about the place; and then, seeing several people together, for they were not all dispersed, he asks one or two what was the matter. They tell him a long story of a gentleman who had lost his pocket-book, with a great bag of diamonds in it, and bills for a great many thousand pounds, and I know not what; and that they had been just crying it, and had offered £100 reward to any one who would discover and restore it. “I wish,” said he to one of them that parleyed with him, “I did but know who has it; I don’t doubt but I could help him to it again. Does he remember nothing of anybody, boy or fellow, that was near him? If he could but describe him, it might do.” Somebody that overheard him was so forward to assist the poor gentleman that they went up and let him know what a young fellow, meaning Will, had been talking at the door; and down comes another gentleman from him, and, taking Will aside, asked him what he had said about it. Will was a grave sort of a young man, that, though he was an old soldier at the trade, had yet nothing of it in his countenance; and he answered that he was concerned in business where a great many of the gangs of little pickpockets haunted, and if he had but the least description of the person they suspected, he durst say he could find him out, and might perhaps get the things again for him. Upon this he desired him to go up with him to the gentleman, which he did accordingly; and there, he said, he sat leaning his head back to the chair, pale as a cloth, disconsolate to a strange degree, and, as Will described him, just like one under a sentence. When they came to ask him whether he had seen no boy or shabby fellow lurking near where he stood, or passing, or repassing, and the like, he answered, “No, not any.” Neither could he remember that anybody had come near him. “Then,” said Will, “it will be very hard, if not impossible, to find them out. However,” said Will, “if you think it worth while, I will put myself among those rogues, though,” says he, “I care not for being seen among them. But I will put in among them, and if it be in any of those gangs, it is ten to one but I shall hear something of it.”