The master and mistress of the shop were really not so violent as the
man from t'other side of the way; and the man said, 'Mistress, you
might come into the shop with a good design for aught I know, but it
seemed a dangerous thing for you to come into such a shop as mine is,
when you see nobody there; and I cannot do justice to my neighbour, who
was so kind to me, as not to acknowledge he had reason on his side;
though, upon the whole, I do not find you attempted to take anything,
and I really know not what to do in it.' I pressed him to go before a
magistrate with me, and if anything could be proved on me that was like
a design of robbery, I should willingly submit, but if not, I expected
reparation.
Just while we were in this debate, and a crowd of people gathered about
the door, came by Sir T. B., an alderman of the city, and justice of
the peace, and the goldsmith hearing of it, goes out, and entreated his
worship to come in and decide the case.
Give the goldsmith his due, he told his story with a great deal of
justice and moderation, and the fellow that had come over, and seized
upon me, told his with as much heat and foolish passion, which did me
good still, rather than harm. It came then to my turn to speak, and I
told his worship that I was a stranger in London, being newly come out
of the north; that I lodged in such a place, that I was passing this
street, and went into the goldsmith's shop to buy half a dozen of
spoons. By great luck I had an old silver spoon in my pocket, which I
pulled out, and told him I had carried that spoon to match it with half
a dozen of new ones, that it might match some I had in the country.
That seeing nobody I the shop, I knocked with my foot very hard to make
the people hear, and had also called aloud with my voice; 'tis true,
there was loose plate in the shop, but that nobody could say I had
touched any of it, or gone near it; that a fellow came running into the
shop out of the street, and laid hands on me in a furious manner, in
the very moments while I was calling for the people of the house; that
if he had really had a mind to have done his neighbour any service, he
should have stood at a distance, and silently watched to see whether I
had touched anything or no, and then have clapped in upon me, and taken
me in the fact. 'That is very true,' says Mr. Alderman, and turning to
the fellow that stopped me, he asked him if it was true that I knocked
with my foot? He said, yes, I had knocked, but that might be because
of his coming. 'Nay,' says the alderman, taking him short, 'now you
contradict yourself, for just now you said she was in the shop with her
back to you, and did not see you till you came upon her.' Now it was
true that my back was partly to the street, but yet as my business was
of a kind that required me to have my eyes every way, so I really had a
glance of him running over, as I said before, though he did not
perceive it.