accused me, sir; you suspected some gambler, with whose character I
have no concern. I should be angry with a friend or acquaintance who
should give a hasty credit to any allegation against me; but I have no
reason to be offended with you for believing what the woman, and the
rascal who is just gone, and who is committed here for a pickpocket,
which you did not perhaps know, told you to my disadvantage. And if
you thought me to be a gambler you had just reason to suspect any ill
of me; for I myself am confined here by the perjury of one of those
villains, who, having cheated me of my money at play, and hearing that
I intended to apply to a magistrate against him, himself began the
attack, and obtained a warrant against me of Justice Thrasher, who,
without hearing one speech in my defence, committed me to this place."

Booth testified great compassion at this account; and, he having
invited Robinson to dinner, they spent that day together. In the
afternoon Booth indulged his friend with a game at cards; at first for
halfpence and afterwards for shillings, when fortune so favoured
Robinson that he did not leave the other a single shilling in his
pocket.

A surprizing run of luck in a gamester is often mistaken for somewhat
else by persons who are not over-zealous believers in the divinity of
fortune. I have known a stranger at Bath, who hath happened
fortunately (I might almost say unfortunately) to have four by honours
in his hand almost every time he dealt for a whole evening, shunned
universally by the whole company the next day. And certain it is, that
Mr. Booth, though of a temper very little inclined to suspicion, began
to waver in his opinion whether the character given by Mr. Robinson of
himself, or that which the others gave of him, was the truer.