I rambled this whole night with them. They went from Chelsea, being disappointed there as above, to Kensington. There they broke into a brewhouse and washhouse, and by that means into an out-kitchen of a gentleman’s house, where they unhanged a small copper, and brought it off, and stole about a hundredweight of pewter, and went clear off with that too. And every one going their own by-ways, they found means to get safe to their several receptacles where they used to dispose of such things. We lay still the next day, and shared the effects stolen that night, of which my share came to £8, 19s. The copper and pewter being weighed, and cast up, a person was at hand to take it as money, at about half value, and in the afternoon Will and I came away together. Will was mighty full of the success we had had, and how we might be sure of the like this way every day. But he observed that I did not seem so elevated at the success of that night’s ramble as I used to be, and also that I did not take any great notice of the expectations he was in of what was to come. Yet I had said little to him at that time. But my heart was full of the poor woman’s case at Kentish Town, and I resolved, if possible, to find her out and give her her money. With the abhorrence that filled my mind at the cruelty of that act, there necessarily followed a little distaste for the thing itself; and now it came into my head with a double force that this was the high road to the devil, and that certainly this was not the life of a gentleman. Will and I parted for that time; but next morning we met again, and Will was mighty brisk and merry. “And now, Colonel Jacque,” says he, “we shall be rich very quickly.” “Well,” says I, “and what shall we do when we are rich?” “Do!” says he; “we will buy a couple of good horses, and go farther afield.” “What do you mean by farther afield?” says I. “Why,” says he, “we will take the highway like gentlemen, and then we shall get a great deal of money indeed.” “Well,” says I, “what then?” “Why, then,” says he, “we shall live like gentlemen.” “But, Will,” says I, “if we get a great deal of money, shan’t we leave this trade off, and sit down, and be safe and quiet?” “Ay,” says Will; “when we have got a great estate, we shall be willing to lay it down.” “But where,” says I, “shall we be before that time comes, if we should drive on this cursed kind of trade?” “Prithee never think of that,” says Will; “if you think of those things, you will never be fit to be a gentleman.” He touched me there indeed, for it ran much in my mind still that I was to be a gentleman, and it made me dumb for a while; but I came to myself after a little while, and I said to him, pretty tartly, “Why, Will, do you call this way of living the life of a gentleman?” “Why,” says Will, “why not?”