ing in style, and honest Jack
Ketch shall never want his dues. A man should always die game. We none
of us know how soon our turn may come; but come when it will, _I_ shall
never flinch from it.

As the highwayman's life is the fullest of zest,
So the highwayman's death is the briefest and best;
He dies not as other men die, by degrees,
But at once! without flinching--and quite at his ease!

as the song you are so fond of says. When I die it will not be of
consumption. And if the surgeon's knife must come near me, it will be
after death. There's some comfort in that reflection, at all events."

"True," replied Turpin, "and, with a little alteration, my song would
suit you capitally:

There is not a king, should you search the world round,
So blithe as the king's king, TOM KING, to be found;
Dear woman's his empire, each girl is his own,
And he'd have a long reign if he'd let 'em alone.

Ha, ha!"

"Ha, ha!" laughed Tom. "And now, Dick, to change the subject. You are
off, I understand, to Yorkshire to-night. 'Pon my soul, you are a
wonderful fellow--an _alibi_ personified!--here and everywhere at the
same time--no wonder you are called the flying highwayman. To-day in
town--to-morrow at York--the day after at Chester. The devil only knows
where you will pitch your quarters a week hence. There are rumors of you
in all counties at the same moment. This man swears you robbed him at
Hounslow; that on Salisbury Plain; while another avers you monopolize
Cheshire and Yorkshire, and that it isn't safe even to _hunt_ without
pops in your pocket. I heard some devilish good stories of you at
D'Osyndar's t'other day; the fellow who told them to me little thought I
was a brother blade."

"You flatter me," said Dick, smiling complacently; "but it's no merit of
mine. Black Bess alone enables me to do it, and hers be the credit.
Talking of being everywhere at the same time, you shall hear what she
once did for me in Cheshire. Meantime, a glass to the best mare in
England. You won't refuse that toast, Tom. Ah! if your mistress is only
as true to you as my nag to me, you might set at naught the tightest
hempen cravat that was ever twisted, and defy your best friend to hurt
you. Black Bess! and God bless her! And now for the song." Saying which,
with much emotion, Turpin chanted the following rhymes:

BLACK BESS

Let the lover his mistress's beauty rehearse,
And laud her attractions i