toward Master Timothy Carter's house, my mother's cousin. This
gentleman--who was town clerk to the Mayor and Corporation of
Oxford--was also in a sense my guardian, holding it trust about L200
(which was all my inheritance), and spending the same jealously on
my education. He was a very small, precise lawyer, about sixty years
old, shaped like a pear, with a prodigious self-important manner
that came of associating with great men: and all the knowledge I had
of him was pick'd up on the rare occasions (about twice a year) that
I din'd at his table. He had early married and lost an aged shrew,
whose money had been the making of him: and had more respect for law
and authority than any three men in Oxford. So that I reflected,
with a kind of desperate hilarity, on the greeting he was like to
give me.

This kinsman of mine had a fine house at the east end of Merton
Street as you turn into Logic Lane: and I was ten yards from the
front door, and running my fastest, when suddenly I tripp'd and fell
headlong.

Before I could rise, a hand was on my shoulder, and a voice speaking
in my ear--

"Pardon, comrade. We are two of a trade, I see."

'Twas a fellow that had been lurking at the corner of the lane, and
had thrust out a leg as I pass'd. He was pricking up his ears now to
the cries of "Thief--thief!" that had already reach'd the head of
the street, and were drawing near.

"I am no thief," said I.