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 they will let you go free; for it shall easily be made appear, that whatever I have done, you had no hand in it.

Upon those persuasions I ventured out with him; but I soon found that my new friend was a thief of quality, and a pick-pocket above the ordinary rank, and that aimed higher abundantly than my brother Jack. He was a bigger boy than I a great deal; for though I was now near fifteen years old, I was not big of my age, and as to the nature of the thing, I was perfectly a stranger to it; I knew indeed what at first I did not, for it was a good while before I understood the thing as an offence: I looked on picking pockets as a trade, and thought I was to go apprentice to it; it is true, this was when I was young in the society, as well as younger in years, but even now I understood it to be only a thing, for which, if we were catched, we run the risque of being ducked or pumped, which we call soaking, and then all was over; and we made nothing of having our rags wetted a little: but I never understood, till a great while after, that the crime was capital, and that we might be sent to Newgate for it, till a great fellow, almost a man, one of our society, was hanged for it; and then I was terribly frighted, as you shall hear by and by.

Well, upon the persuasions of this lad, I walked