Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/9

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ance of an author by profession, who will new-write it mostly all over. The gentleman will put all of it in order, fit to be read, and add a word or two, or a line or two, here and there, when I am out. This is but fair and proper, considering as I am not much used to the pen, I might make "a pretty kettle of fish of it;" so, "I cares not, not I," says I to the gentleman as employs us both, "its all one to me, though he should strike out every word; for, as for me, as I mean to out with it all, he may put it dowm in what lingo he likes." This is all I shall say "of my own accord," seeing I am willing to make amends for my past life, by disclosing such secrets as never were made public before, not upon paper; and I thought I would have a few words of my own put down in genuine, at the beginning, without any of his "making or meddling." So, as I have promised and mean to leave off the calling, and "live comfortable" upon the profits of this here book, I have just put an end to it by grabbing three or four books[1] from the gentleman, my employer, which I have now got under my great coat, as I mean to borrow a word or two, and a few hints as I go on, as is usual in book-making.

Although one of them authors pretends to be up to


  1. 1. Report of the house of commons on the police; 2. A treatise on the police of the metropolis; 3. King's Frauds of London; 4. Sir John Fielding's tracts; 5. New Monthly Magazine, 1st June, 1817, and Oct. Nov. Dec. and Jan. following.