Page:Memoirs James Hardy Vaux.djvu/489

212 valuable or acceptable acquisition of any kind, is emphatically called a stake, meaning a great prize.

STALL, a violent pressure in a crowd, made by pick-pockets for the more easily effecting their depredatory purposes; this is called making a rum stall in the push.

STALL OFF, a term variously applied; generally it means a pretence, excuse, or prevarication–as a person charged with any fault, entering into some plausible story, to excuse himself, his hearers or accusers would say, O yes, that’s a good stall off, or, Aye, aye, stall it off that way if you can. To extricate a person from any dilemma, or save him from disgrace, is called stalling him off; as an accomplice of your’s being detected in a robbery, &c., and about to be given up to justice, you will step up as a stranger, interfere in his behalf, and either by vouching for his innocence, recommending lenity, or some other artifice, persuade his accusers to forego their intention, and let the prisoner escape; you will then boast of having stalled him off in prime twig. To avoid or escape any impending evil or punishment by means of artifice, submission, bribe, or otherwise, is also called stalling it off. A man walking the streets, and passing a particular shop, or encountering a certain person, which or whom he has reasons for wishing to avoid, will say to any friend who may be with him, I wish you’d stall me off from that crib, (or from that cove, as the case may be) meaning, walk in such a way as to cover or obscure me from notice, until we are past the shop or person in question.

STALL UP. To stall a person up, (a term used by