out with him; a poor innocent boy, and (as I remember my very thoughts perfectly well) I had no evil in my intentions; I had never stolen anything in my life; and if a goldsmith had left me in his shop, with heaps of money strewed all round me, and bade me look after it, I should not have touched it, I was so honest; but the subtle tempter baited his hook for me, as I was a child, in a manner suitable to my childishness, for I never took this picking of pockets to be dishonesty, but, as I have said above, I looked on it as a kind of trade that I was to be bred up to, and so I entered upon it, till I became hardened in it beyond the power of retreating; and thus I was made a thief involuntarily, and went on a length that few boys do, without coming to the common period of that kind of life, I mean to the transport-ship, or to the gallows.
The first day I went abroad with my new instructor, he carried me directly into the city, and as we went first to the water-side, he led me into the long-room at the custom-house; we were but a couple of ragged boys at best, but I was much the worse: my leader had a hat on, a shirt, and a neckcloth; as for me, I had neither of the three, nor had I spoiled my manners so much as to have a hat on my head since my nurse died, which was now some years. His orders to me were to keep
