very afternoon picked the pocket of the Earl of Idford of a repeater
studded with diamonds, under the Piazza, as he was coming out of the
Shakespeare, where he had been to attend an election meeting. By this
I learned, in five words, what, before the play began, my brain had
been ineffectually busied about for a full hour.

Being told that I was a stranger and did not know my road, the
constable informed me it would be safest to go home in a coach. I took
his advice: a coach was called, and I was once more conveyed to the
Gloucester Coffee-house.




CHAPTER III


_The advice of Enoch: Complaisance of a peer: A liberal offer and
Enoch's sensibility, or the favour doubly returned_


My health, appetite, and spirits suffered no check, from this tide of
novelty and tumult of accident. I eat heartily, slept soundly, and
rose chearfully. It is true, I came up to London with propensities
which, from my education, that is, from the course of former events,
would not suffer me to be idle; and in the space of a few hours I
had already received several important lessons, that considerably
increased my stock of knowledge.

Of these I did not fail to make an active use. They awakened