ite his recent escape: he brought away two watches and three purses
from the Garden, so that our necessities were amply supplied. Ah, I
should have been happy in those days if only Jack had been faithful.
But he had a roving eye and a joyous temperament; and though he loved
me better than any of the baggages to whom he paid court, he would not
visit me so often as he should. Why, once he was hustled off to Bow
Street because the watch caught him climbing in at Doll Frampton's
window. And she, the shameless minx, got him off by declaring in open
court that she would be proud to receive him whenever he would deign to
ring at her bell. That is the penalty of loving a great man: you must
needs share his affection with a set of unworthy wenches. Yet Jack was
always kind to me, and I was the chosen companion of his pranks.

'Never can I forget the splendid figure he cut that day at Bagnigge
Wells. We had driven down in our coach, and all the world marvelled at
our magnificence. Jack was brave in a scarlet coat, a tambour waistcoat,
and white silk stockings. From the knees of his breeches streamed the
strings (eight at each), whence he got his name, and as he plucked
off his lace-hat the dinner-table rose at him. That was a moment worth
living for, and when, after his first bottle, Jack rattled the glasses,
and declared himself a highwayman, the whole company shuddered. "But, my
friends," quoth he, "to-day I am making holiday, so that you have naught
to fear." When the wine 's in, the wit 's out, and Jack could never stay
his hand from the bottle. The more he drank, the more he bragged, until,
thoroughly fuddled, he lost a ring from his finger, and charged the
miscreants in the room with stealing it. "However," hiccupped he,
"'tis a mere nothing, worth a paltry hundred pounds--less than a lazy
evening's work. So I'll let the trifling theft pass." But the cowards
were not content with Jack's generosity, and seizing upon him, they
thrust him neck and crop through the window. They were seventeen to one,
the craven-hearted loons; and I could but leave the marks of my nails
on the cheek of the foremost, and follow my hero into the yard, where we
took coach, and drove sulkily back to Covent Garden.

'And yet he was not always in a mad humour; in fact, Sixteen-String
Jack, for all his gaiety, was a proud, melancholy man. The shadow of the
tree was always upon him, and he would make me miserable by talking of
his certain doom. "I have