Page:Life of Colonel Jack (1810).djvu/45

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COLONEL JACK.
29

always in sight, and near him, but not close to him, nor to take any notice of him at any time till he came to me; and if any hurly burly happened, I should by no means know him, or pretend to have any thing to do with him.

I observed my orders to a tittle. While he peered into every corner, and had his eye upon every body, I kept my eye directly upon him, but went always at a distance, and on the other side of the long-room, looking as it were for pins, and picking them up out of the dust as I could find them, and then sticking them on my sleeve, where I had at last got 40 or 50 good pins; but still my eye was upon my comrade, who, I observed, was very busy among the crowds of people that stood at the board, doing business with the officers, who pass the entries, and make the cocquets, &c.

At length he comes over to me, and stooping as if he would take up a pin close to me, he put something into my hand, and said, put that up, and follow me down stairs quickly; he did not run, but shuffled along a pace through the crowd, and went down, not the great stairs which we came in at, but a little narrow stair-case at the other end of the long-room; I followed, and he found I did, and so went on, not stopping below as I expected, nor speaking one word to me, till through innumerable narrow passages, alleys, and dark ways, we were