The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

I very punctually divided this spoil with my governess, and I passed

with her from this time for a very dexterous manager in the nicest

cases. I found that this last was the best and easiest sort of work

that was in my way, and I made it my business to inquire out prohibited

goods, and after buying some, usually betrayed them, but none of these

discoveries amounted to anything considerable, not like that I related

just now; but I was willing to act safe, and was still cautious of

running the great risks which I found others did, and in which they

miscarried every day.

The next thing of moment was an attempt at a gentlewoman's good watch.

It happened in a crowd, at a meeting-house, where I was in very great

danger of being taken. I had full hold of her watch, but giving a

great jostle, as if somebody had thrust me against her, and in the

juncture giving the watch a fair pull, I found it would not come, so I

let it go that moment, and cried out as if I had been killed, that

somebody had trod upon my foot, and that there were certainly

pickpockets there, for somebody or other had given a pull at my watch;

for you are to observe that on these adventures we always went very

well dressed, and I had very good clothes on, and a gold watch by my

side, as like a lady as other fold.

I had no sooner said so, but the other gentlewoman cried out 'A

pickpocket' too, for somebody, she said, had tried to pull her watch

away.

When I touched her watch I was close to her, but when I cried out I

stopped as it were short, and the crowd bearing her forward a little,

she made a noise too, but it was at some distance from me, so that she

did not in the least suspect me; but when she cried out 'A pickpocket,'

somebody cried, 'Ay, and here has been another! this gentlewoman has

been attempted too.' At that very instance, a little farther in the crowd, and very luckily

too, they cried out 'A pickpocket,' again, and really seized a young

fellow in the very act. This, though unhappy for the wretch, was very

opportunely for my case, though I had carried it off handsomely enough

before; but now it was out of doubt, and all the loose part of the

crowd ran that way, and the poor boy was delivered up to the rage of

the street, which is a cruelty I need not describe, and which, however,

they are always glad of, rather than to be sent to Newgate, where they

lie often a long time, till they are almost perished, and sometimes

they are hanged, and the best they can look for, if they are convicted,

is to be transported.