Et cantare pares,
et respondere parati.
—Virgil.
As we walked on into Tottenham-court-road, where we
expected to find a hackney-coach, my companion earnestly
and strenuously impressed on my mind, the necessity
of implicitly obeying any instructions or hints he
might give me in the course of our adventure.
“Remember,” said he, forcibly, “that
the least deviation from them, will not only defeat
our object of removing Dawson, but even expose our
lives to the most imminent peril.” I faithfully
promised to conform to the minutest tittle of his
instructions.
We came to a stand of coaches. Jonson selected
one, and gave the coachman an order; he took care
it should not reach my ears. During the half hour
we passed in this vehicle, Job examined and reexamined
me in my “canting catechism,” as he termed
it. He expressed himself much pleased with the
quickness of my parts, and honoured me with an assurance
that in less than three months he would engage to
make me as complete a ruffler as ever nailed a swell.
To this gratifying compliment I made the best return
in my power.
“You must not suppose,” said Jonson—some
minutes afterwards, “from our use of this language,
that our club consists of the lower order of thieves—quite
the contrary: we are a knot of gentlemen adventurers
who wear the best clothes, ride the best hacks, frequent
the best gaming houses, as well as the genteelest
haunts, and sometimes keep the first company in London.
We are limited in number: we have nothing in common
with ordinary prigs, and should my own little private
amusements (as you appropriately term them) be known
in the set, I should have a very fair chance of being
expelled for ungentlemanlike practices. We rarely
condescend to speak “flash” to each other
in our ordinary meetings, but we find it necessary,
for many shifts to which fortune sometimes drives
us. The house you are going this night to visit,
is a sort of colony we have established for whatever
persons amongst us are in danger of blood-money.
[Rewards for the apprehension of thieves.] There they
sometimes lie concealed for weeks together, and are
at last shipped off for the continent, or enter the
world under a new alias. To this refuge of the
distressed we also send any of the mess, who, like
Dawson, are troubled with qualms of conscience, which
are likely to endanger the commonwealth; there they
remain, as in a hospital, till death, or a cure, in
short, we put the house, like its inmates, to any
purposes likely to frustrate our enemies, and serve
ourselves. Old Brimstone Bess, to whom I shall
introduce you, is, as I before said, the guardian of
the place; and the language that respectable lady
chiefly indulges in, is the one into which you have
just acquired so good an insight. Partly in compliment
to her, and partly from inclination, the dialect adopted
in her house, is almost entirely “flash;”
and you, therefore, perceive the necessity of appearing
not utterly ignorant of a tongue, which is not only
the language of the country, but one with which no
true boy, however high in his profession, is ever
unacquainted.”
