Our traveller sat mournfully by the roadside for a while, contemplating his empty pack and the reins of his horse, which had been cut by the two partners in crime. It was not long before he arrived at the very just conclusion that the landlord of the inn was a party to this business, and a very pretty little scheme occurred to him by which he saw the possibility of getting his own again. He carefully refilled his portmanteau with stones, and retracing his way to St. Albans, called first at a saddler’s to have his reins mended, and then leaving the horse behind him, went back to the inn. When the rascally landlord saw him return with his baggage as heavy as before, he came to the natural conclusion that his confederates had not robbed the stranger, and cursed them under his breath for a pair of bungling fools. The returned traveller himself confirmed this impression, accounting for his reappearance by telling how an accident had happened to his nag. In the meantime, he said, before starting out again, he must have dinner, and only wished he could have had the pleasure of the company at that meal of the good fellows his host had introduced him to the night before. With much extravagant praise of their good and sociable qualities, he declared that he must really not lose sight of such fine fellows. Did mine host know where they lived in London? That villainous tapster was quite deceived. He _did_ know the addresses, and gave them. In due course, then, imagine our traveller once more on his way, and finally arriving in town. The next morning he called upon Garrett, in the guise of a “gentleman on important business.” Garrett was still in bed, and could not be seen, having “just returned from a journey in the country.” To this he replied that it was urgent and important business, and this message brought the highwayman down. The traveller had not come without very potent persuaders to support his demand for his property. The one was a threat to have both highwaymen arrested; the other was a pistol. These inducements were successful, and his hundred guineas found their way back to his pockets, together with a portion of his other property. Then he made a similar call upon the other malefactor, who yielded up the other moiety of the contents of the portmanteau, and (as we are told by the contemporary historian of these things) another hundred guineas. We need not believe in this epic completeness and overflowing measure of justice and retribution. _There_ lurks the eighteenth-century moralist, eager to cross the t’s and dot the i’s of every situation. But there is no reason why, up to that point, the story should not be true.