Page:History of Moll Flanders (3).pdf/16

 so I meddled with nothing, and a justice of peace coming by, being called in, cleared me with flying colours.

Another time, going into a sempstress’ shop in Cheapside, and cheapening half a dozen of very good Holland shifts, I doubted the length of them; upon which the sempstress slipt one of the smocks upon her, which gave me the advantage to pin it with two or three pins to her petticoat, and taking up the rest, with other parcels of muslin, run away out of the shop. The sempstress endeavouring then to pull off her smock, pulled up her clouts, and running after, cryed, Stop thief, stop thief! with all she had exposed to the public; who taking her for a mad woman, I got clear off with my booty, and the sempstress was bantered to her dying day, besides losing to the value of fifty pounds of muslin.

But after happening to steal some brocaded silk from a mercer’s shop, I was apprehended, and being carried before a justice, was committed to Newgate, the place of my nativity, where it