it away for him as safely as the experienced police-officer had done theirs."
"Yes, varra keyndly! varra! and preyme and seafe they'll staw it awa', I'll be baund."
"Now, if you'll allow me your purse, sir, for one moment, I'll show you how the whole affair is managed."
Mr. Sandboys drew forth from the pocket of his trowsers the little red cotton bag in which he carried his stock of gold and notes, and handed it over, as requested, to his fellow-traveller, saying, "Ise varra 'bleeged, I'se sure; an' how I'll ever pay tha for all thy guidness, I dunnet ken. Beant it keynd of t' gentleman, now, Aggy?"
But that lady made no reply; she merely watched, with intense interest, the operations of the strange gentleman.
"You see," said that person, as he took Mr. Sandboys' purse in his hand, and commenced rolling it backwards and forwards on his knee, "it's all done by what we call palming. If I intended to deceive you, now is the time I should do it; for while you fancied I was reducing the contents of your purse to the smallest possible compass, I really should be substituting another for it; and then I should proceed to place it all safe for you, thus—"
Here the strange gentleman proceeded to lift up the long-waisted waistcoat of the grateful Mr. Sandboys, and introduced the small red-cotton bag, in which his money was contained, into his fob; after which he gave the purse a peculiar twist round,—for in this, he said, the London rogues made out that the whole virtue consisted. In reality, however, he told him, there was little or nothing at all in it, and it was only upon the very simplest people that the trick was ever attempted to be practised now-a-days.
"Well, I sud say as much, for onie mon cud see through t' trick wi hawf an eye," exclaimed the Buttermere philosopher.
"With such a gentleman as yourself, of course, a man would not stand the least chance," continued the stranger; "especially after all I've put you up to; still the trick, common as it is, and extraordinary as I've not the least doubt it must strike a man of your discernment that it ever can succeed—still, I say, it has one thing to recommend it, which is, that the fob is perhaps, after all, about the most secure place for keeping one's money. In crowds or lonely places, nothing is more easy than for one man to pinion the arms behind a gentleman, while another rifles his breeches-pockets; and as for carrying either a purse or a pocket-book in the coat-tails—why you might as well invest it in one of King Hudson's railways at once! Whereas, in the fob, you see, it takes so long to get at it, that it is not possible to be extracted in that short space of time in which street-robberies require to be executed. So, if you take my advice,—the advice, I think I may say, of a person of no ordinary experience,—you will continue to keep your purse in your fob as I have placed it!"
Mr. Sandboys again expressed his deepest gratitude for all the
