Mr. Moses was a good deal reassured by my address. But after all his race are a good deal too tenacious to be put off so lightly. He demanded to know in what manner I had come there and he did it so boisterously too, and in a fashion so calculated to attract the attention of persons in the street that I judged it wisest to make a clean breast of how matters stood with me. "Well, Mr. Moses," says I, "if you must know I am that great benefactor of your tribe, Lord Tiverton. My lodgings are about six doors up the street, and they have been visited this afternoon by the dirtiest set of minions from Bow Street as ever I saw. And so hard was I put to it to clear them that I took to the housetops, whereupon, seeing your dormer window open, I gave them the slip by climbing into it, and here I am. And mark you, my dear Mr. Moses, I would not so honour the dormer windows of all and sundry, no, rabbit me an I would. For I am mighty particular as to whose hands I would accept an obligation from. But if a friend cannot take a benefaction from a friend, then who in all the world is one to take it from? As Flaccus himself has said." Mr. Moses, you may be sure, was mollified indeed. "I am sure I beg your lordship's pardon," says he. "A thousand times most humbly I am sure I do. Benjamin, put by your blunderbush; and withdraw the curtains across the window, sirrah, for I have seen the traps walking up and down the street, and peering here and there and everywhere this last ten minutes; yes, that I have. Is there any particular in which I can serve your lordship?" "Yes, by thunder, that you can!" says I. "I must get away from here unknown as quickly as you might count ten. The traps are still about in the street you say?" "See, my lord, there is one going past the window now." As he spoke I took the precaution of drawing farther back into the shadow of the stairs, for it was even as he said. The next instant Mr. Moses pushed the door to in my face, and as he did so, wheeled round to confront (as I guessed) two or three of the traps who were coming into the shop. "A sheeny, by the Lord!" I heard one say, in a voice so coarse that it set my teeth on edge. "What is your pleasure, good gentlemans?" says Mr. Moses in a tone of incredible politeness. "If I, a poor old clo'es-dealer as I am, can be of service to you, I cannot tell you how happy you will make me." "Well, ole Father Abraham," says the foremost man, "we're on the 'eels of a hearl, d'ye see. We've been a-chasing of him on the 'ouse-tops, we have so, and he's just a-been a-squeedgin' of himself through your dormer window, and he's left us in the lurch, d'ye see. He's in your bed-room, you can wager, and we're a-going up to rout him out." "Is he so?" says Mr. Moses. "God-a-mercy! is it possible? Benjamin, get your blunderbush, and go and bring him down."