He had been a successful ruffler along the road in all his brief but varied career, and although a man of peace, and never known to enforce his demands for the turning out of pockets with anything worse than an oath and a well-assumed air of truculence, had always enjoyed exceptional fortune. It is scarce necessary to add that his gains were spent as freely as they were made: few highwaymen ever put anything by for a rainy day. On his return home, he amassed so great a store of gold watches, diamonds, and guineas, in so short a time that, had they grown wild in the hedges, he could scarce have gleaned more, or more speedily. “_Jam satis_,” he exclaimed (for he had been a Cambridge undergrad in his time, and loved a Latin tag) when coming out of Essex into Aldgate with his pockets bursting with gold rings and chains; and, putting up at the “Saracen’s Head,” determined to forswear the road and live cleanly on his accumulated wealth. An incident he had witnessed in the dusk, coming from Snaresbrook to Aldgate, had probably been the inducement to “the quiet life” thus contemplated. At the turnpike gate he had observed a gentleman arrested in mistake for himself! So, leaving the “Saracen’s Head” early the next morning, he set out on horseback on the long journey to Holyhead, proposing to voyage over to Dublin and there dispose of his plunder. Good resolutions filled his heart: he carolled as he went, in rivalry with the hedge-side warblers, and in this manner left St. Albans behind, and so came into this broad reach of the road near Redbourne. Unhappily for him, he had taken a little too much port at St. Albans, and the port disguised his prudence to that extent that, seeing three horsemen slowly ambling along the highway, he must needs resume his old trade and bid them “stand and deliver!” “Gentleman Harry” had never been distinguished for his personal courage, and those who dared to disregard him generally found themselves safe enough. The first of the travellers said he would not be robbed, and rode on; the second gave our friend a slash over the head with his riding-whip; and all three went their way. “Blood and wounds!” thought Simms, the wine fermenting in his brain; “shall I be scorned thus? Never!” And, in a drunken fury, he titupped after them, and really did secure a delivery. From one he received nine shillings, from another an old watch and seven shillings, and from the third two guineas and seventeen shillings.