ORUS

_Then who can name
So merry a game,
As the game of all games--high toby?_[84]

The traveller hears him, away! away!
Over the wide wide heath he scurries;
He heeds not the thunderbolt summons to stay,
But ever the faster and faster he hurries.
But what daisy-cutter can match that black tit?
He is caught--he must "stand and deliver;"
Then out with the dummy[85], and off with the bit,[86]
Oh! the game of high toby for ever!

CHORUS

_Then who can name
So merry a game,
As the game of all games--high toby?_

Believe me, there is not a game, my brave boys,
To compare with the game of high toby;
No rapture can equal the tobyman's joys,
To blue devils, blue plumbs[87] give the go-by;
And what if, at length, boys, he come to the crap![88]
Even rack punch has _some_ bitter in it,
For the mare-with-three-legs[89], boys, I care not a rap,
'Twill be over in less than a minute.

GRAND CHORUS

_Then hip, hurrah!
Fling care away!
Hurrah for the game of high toby!_

"And now, pals," said Dick, who began to feel the influence of these
morning cups, "I vote that we adjourn. Believe me I shall always bear in
mind that I am a brother of your band. Sir Luke and I must have a little
chat together ere I take my leave. Adieu!"

And taking Luke by the arm, he walked out of the tent. Peter Bradley
rose, and followed them.

At the door they found the dwarfish Grasshopper with Black Bess.
Rewarding the urchin for his trouble, and slipping the bridle of his
mare over his hand, Turpin continued his walk over the green. For a few
minutes he seemed to be lost in rumination.

"I tell you what, Sir Luke," said he; "I should like to do a generous
thing, and make you a present of this bit of paper. But one ought not to
throw away one's luck, you know--there is a tide in the affairs of
thieves, as the player coves say, which must be taken at the flood, or
else----no matter! Your old dad, Sir Piers--God help him!--had the
gingerbread, _that_ I know; he was, as we say, a regular rhino-cerical
cull. You won't feel a few thousands, especially at starting; and
besides, there are two others, Rust and Wilder, who row in the same boat
with me, and must therefore come in for their share of the reg'lars.
All this considered, you c