I had made no mistake about his arrogance. He drew himself up, and his eyes flashed at me. "How dare you?" he began. "I will----"; and he looked round as if to summon someone to aid him in resenting an insult. "Oh, all right," I said, pocketing the coin; "if you are as proud as all that----! But I meant no harm, and I'm almost as poor as you are." "The more shame to you for behaving like that," he said hotly. "I could forgive it, perhaps, in one who was richer. I will not take your money; and if you use your superior strength to force it on me, I warn you that you will not hear the last of it." I felt sorry for the poor creature. I took the sixpence out of my pocket again, and held it out to him. "Come now, take it," I said. "Go and get yourself a good meal, or a drink if you like. You look as if it wouldn't do you any harm." He was still more enraged. "You impudent scoundrel!" he cried. "I'll have you arrested for this." And he stalked off with his head in the air, wrapping his rags around him. He looked such an absurd figure that I sent an involuntary laugh after him, which caused him to turn round and shake his fist at me. I had not meant him to hear, for I was sorry for him; but I reflected before I had chosen my mossy resting-place under a spreading oak, that with so great a contempt for money and what money represented in the way of bodily comfort, he was not so much in want of pity as he seemed to be. Then I took off my knapsack, and pillowing my head upon it was soon in a deep sleep. As, after a long time, I began to regain consciousness, I became aware of a touch on my body about the region of my waist. It could only have been a second or two before the actuality disengaged itself from the stuff of my dreams, and I suddenly awoke, and sprang up into a sitting posture, to see a figure disappearing among the trees. Feeling in my waistcoat pocket, I found that my watch had disappeared. I jumped up, and seizing my knapsack in one hand and my stout walking-stick in the other, gave chase. I had not very far to go. When I got round the tree behind which the thief had disappeared, I saw to my surprise that he was an elderly, if not an old man, dressed in a frock coat and a tall hat. He was stout, and appeared to be grossly fed, for as I came up to him he turned and put up his hands to warn me off--my watch was in one of them; but he was so winded by his few yards' run that he was not able to speak. In his mouth was a large and expensive-smelling cigar, and he formed the oddest figure of a watch-snatcher that could well be imagined. I seized my watch out of his hand, and he found breath enough to bleat out: "What are you doing? They're after you. Give me all your money quickly, before they come." "You old rascal!" I cried, and was going on to give him a piece of my mind, when my attention was distracted by a hullabaloo from the road, which was only a few yards off, and from which we could be plainly seen.