ose days, and many a one longed to have been his
partner in the pious plunder.

* In the ingenious contemporary history of Moll Flanders, a
periwig is mentioned as costing that sum.

All surmises concerning his wealth, Captain Wood, with much discretion,
encouraged. He contradicted no report, but was quite ready to confirm
all; and when two different rumours were positively put to him, he used
only to laugh, and say, "My dear sir, _I_ don't make the stories; but
I'm not called upon to deny them; and I give you fair warning, that I
shall assent to every one of them; so you may believe them or not, as
you please." And so he had the reputation of being a gentleman, not only
wealthy, but discreet. In truth, it was almost a pity that worthy Brock
had not been a gentleman born; in which case, doubtless, he would have
lived and died as became his station; for he spent his money like
a gentleman, he loved women like a gentleman, he would fight like a
gentleman, he gambled and got drunk like a gentleman. What did he want
else? Only a matter of six descents, a little money, and an estate, to
render him the equal of St. John or Harley. "Ah, those were merry days!"
would Mr. Brock say,--for he loved, in a good old age, to recount the
story of his London fashionable campaign;--"and when I think how near
I was to become a great man, and to die perhaps a general, I can't but
marvel at the wicked obstinacy of my ill-luck."

"I will tell you what I did, my dear: I had lodgings in Piccadilly, as
if I were a lord; I had two large periwigs, and three suits of laced
clothes; I kept a little black dressed out like a Turk; I walked daily
in the Mall; I dined at the politest ordinary in Covent Garden; I
frequented the best of coffee-houses, and knew all the pretty fellows of
the town; I cracked a bottle with Mr. Addison, and lent many a piece to
Dick Steele (a sad debauched rogue, my dear); and, above all, I'll tell
you what I did--the noblest stroke that sure ever a gentleman performed
in my situation.

"One day, going into 'Will's,' I saw a crowd of gentlemen gathered
together, and heard one of them say, 'Captain Wood! I don't know the
man; but there was a Captain Wood in Southwell's regiment.' Egad, it was
my Lord Peterborough himself who was talking about me. So, putting off
my hat, I made a most gracious conge to my Lord, and said I knew HIM,
and rode behind him at Barcelona on our entry into that town.

"'No doubt you did,