cond marriage of his father,
upon which he was fetched home and treated with some kindness at first.
But in a little time perceiving how things were going, and perhaps
expressing his suspicions too freely, his mother-in-law soon prevailed
to have him turned out, and absolutely forbidden his father's house, the
ready way to force a naked uninstructed youth on the most sinful
courses. Whether Robin at that time did anything dishonest is not
certain, but being grievously pinched with cold one night, and troubled
also with dismal apprehensions of what might come to his sister, he got
a ladder and by the help of it climbed in at his mother's window. This
was immediately exaggerated into a design of cutting her throat, and
poor Bob was thereupon utterly discarded.

A short time after this, old Mr. Perkins died and left a fortune of
several thousand pounds behind him, for which the poor young man was
never a groat the better, being bound out 'prentice to a baker, and
left, as to everything else, to the wide world. His inclination, joined
to the rambling life which he had hitherto led, induced him to mind the
vulgar pleasures of drinking, gaming, and idling about much more than
his business, which to him appeared very laborious. There are everywhere
companions enough to be met with who are ready to teach ignorant youths
the practice of all sorts of debauchery. Perkins fell quickly among such
a set, and often rambled abroad with them on the usual errands of
whoring, shuffle-board, or skittle-playing, etc. The thoughts of that
estate which in justice he ought to have possessed, did not a little
contribute to make him thus heedless of his business, for as is usual
with weak minds, he affected living at the rate his father's fortune
would have afforded him, rather than in the frugal manner which his
narrow circumstance actually required; methods which necessarily pushed
him on such expeditions for supply as drew on those misfortunes which
rendered his life miserable and his death shameful.

One day, having agreed with some young lads in the neighbourhood to go
out upon the rake, they steered their course to Whitechapel, and going
into a little alehouse, began to drink stoutly, sing bawdy songs, and
indulge themselves in the rest of those brutal delights into which such
wretches are used to plunge under the name of pleasure. In the height,
however, of all their mirth, the people of the house missing out of the
till a crown piece wi