They stood looking one at another a good while, as surprised at the honesty of it; for till that time they were not quite without a secret suspicion that he was the thief; but that piece of policy cleared up his reputation to them. The gentleman that had got his bills said softly to one of them, “Give it him all.” But the other said (softly too), “No, no; as long as he has got it abated, and is satisfied with the £50 you have given him, ’tis very well; let it go as it ’tis.” This was not spoke so softly but he heard it, and said, “No,” too; “I am very well satisfied; I am glad I have got them for you;” and so they began to part. But just before they were going away one of the gentlemen said to him, “Young man, come, you see we are just to you, and have done fairly, as you have also; and we will not desire you to tell us who this cunning fellow is that got such a prize from this gentleman; but as you have talked with him, prithee, can you tell us nothing of how he did it, that we may beware of such sparks again?” “Sir,” says Will, “when I shall tell you what they say, and how the particular case stood, the gentleman would blame himself more than anybody else, or as much at least. The young rogue that catched this prize was out, it seems, with a comrade, who is a nimble, experienced pickpocket as most in London; but at that time the artist was somewhere at a distance, and this boy never had picked a pocket in his life before; but he says he stood over against the passage into the Exchange, on the east side, and the gentleman stood just by the passage; that he was very earnest in talking with some other gentleman, and often pulled out this book and opened it, and took papers out and put others in, and returned it into his coat-pocket; that the last time it hitched at the pocket-hole, or stopt at something that was in the pocket, and hung a little out, which the boy, who had watched it a good while perceiving, he passes by close to the gentleman, and carried it smoothly off, without the gentleman’s perceiving it at all.” He went on, and said, “’Tis very strange gentlemen should put pocket-books which have such things in them into those loose pockets, and in so careless a manner.” “That’s very true,” says the gentleman; and so, with some other discourse of no great signification, he came away to me. We were now so rich that we scarce knew what to do with our money; at least I did not, for I had no relations, no friends, nowhere to put anything I had but in my pocket. As for Will, he had a poor mother, but wicked as himself, and he made her rich and glad with his good success.