The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

I found also that in following this trade she always melted down the

plate she bought, that it might not be challenged; and she came to me

and told me one morning that she was going to melt, and if I would, she

would put my tankard in, that it might not be seen by anybody. I told

her, with all my heart; so she weighed it, and allowed me the full

value in silver again; but I found she did not do the same to the rest

of her customers.

Some time after this, as I was at work, and very melancholy, she begins

to ask me what the matter was, as she was used to do. I told her my

heart was heavy; I had little work, and nothing to live on, and knew

not what course to take. She laughed, and told me I must go out again

and try my fortune; it might be that I might meet with another piece of

plate. 'O mother!' says I, 'that is a trade I have no skill in, and if

I should be taken I am undone at once.' Says she, 'I could help you to

a schoolmistress that shall make you as dexterous as herself.' I

trembled at that proposal, for hitherto I had had no confederates, nor

any acquaintance among that tribe. But she conquered all my modesty,

and all my fears; and in a little time, by the help of this

confederate, I grew as impudent a thief, and as dexterous as ever Moll

Cutpurse was, though, if fame does not belie her, not half so handsome.

The comrade she helped me to dealt in three sorts of craft, viz.

shoplifting, stealing of shop-books and pocket-books, and taking off

gold watches from the ladies' sides; and this last she did so

dexterously that no woman ever arrived to the performance of that art

so as to do it like her. I liked the first and the last of these

things very well, and I attended her some time in the practice, just as

a deputy attends a midwife, without any pay.

At length she put me to practice. She had shown me her art, and I had

several times unhooked a watch from her own side with great dexterity.

At last she showed me a prize, and this was a young lady big with

child, who had a charming watch. The thing was to be done as she came

out of church. She goes on one side of the lady, and pretends, just as

she came to the steps, to fall, and fell against the lady with so much

violence as put her into a great fright, and both cried out terribly.

In the very moment that she jostled the lady, I had hold of the watch,

and holding it the right way, the start she gave drew the hook out, and

she never felt it. I made off immediately, and left my schoolmistress

to come out of her pretended fright gradually, and the lady too; and

presently the watch was missed. 'Ay,' says my comrade, 'then it was

those rogues that thrust me down, I warrant ye; I wonder the

gentlewoman did not miss her watch before, then we might have taken

them.' She humoured the thing so well that nobody suspected her, and I was got

home a full hour before her. This was my first adventure in company.

The watch was indeed a very fine one, and had a great many trinkets

about it, and my governess allowed us #20 for it, of which I had half.

And thus I was entered a complete thief, hardened to the pitch above

all the reflections of conscience or modesty, and to a degree which I

must acknowledge I never thought possible in me.