The highwayman's high sense of right and wrong in regard to those he was pleased to call "the brethren of our profession" was really touching. Nothing in the first place could convince him that we were not in that sense his brethren, and that we did not earn our livelihood by his uncompromising methods. We had entered the inn by the aid of false protestations; we had ordered a meal that he was sure we had no means of paying for; we had connived at the escape of a desperate malefactor, and had committed a gross fraud on a justice of the peace; therefore he had every good reason to stand firm in his estimate of our character. To my rejoinder that we hoped he would not pursue the matter, as we were anything but what we appeared to be, and were debarred by circumstances that had recently befallen us from publishing our true condition to him or to any one else, he replied with laughter of the most immoderate sort. "Rat me," says he, "this is no new tale. I wonder how many times in a twelvemonth it does duty at Old Bailey! But I do not like to be baffled by anybody, and I must say your behaviour is inexplicable. It is Quixotic, my friends, it is Quixotic. I cannot possibly let it pass. I must beg you to accept these small monies as a token of my gratitude." He had the devil for his advocate too. It truly was Quixotic. It was wealth untold to persons in our condition; persons condemned to blow the flute from place to place for a livelihood. We were reminded of nights in the rain; of empty bellies; of fainting limbs; of rags, misery and mud, and the hundred other ills that attend on a bitter poverty. We had sevenpence in our pockets with which to discharge a score that would be reckoned in pounds. What wonder that we felt our resolution falter before the lure that was laid before us? Together, however, we prevailed where one of us singly might have given way. The highwayman vented his perplexity in various ways. He put forth a dozen theories that would cover our irreconcilable conduct. But all of them were equally wide of the mark. To all sources but the true one did he trace our demeanour. That we were striving to be as honest as our circumstances would permit, never entered his head. And when at last we gave him a cordial good-night prior to retiring to the chamber that had been prepared for us, he was fain to acknowledge that he was never so completely beaten by anything as by our behaviour.