'Yes, sir,' said Booth, 'she was intrusted with everything.'
'And will you swear that the goods stolen,' said the justice, 'are worth forty shillings?'
'No, indeed, sir,' answered Booth, 'nor that they are worthy thirty either.'
'Then, sir,' cries the justice, 'the girl cannot be guilty of felony.'
'How, sir,' said Booth, 'is it not a breach of trust? and is not a breach of trust felony, and the worst felony too?'
'No, sir,' answered the justice; 'a breach of trust is no crime in our law, unless it be in a servant; and then the act of parliament requires the goods taken to be of the value of forty shillings.'
'So then a servant,' cries Booth, 'may rob his master of thirty-nine shillings whenever he pleases, and he can't be punished.'
'If the goods are under his care, he can't,' cries the justice.
'I ask your pardon, sir,' says Booth. 'I do not doubt what you say; but sure this is a very extraordinary law.'
'Perhaps I think so too,' said the justice; 'but it belongs not to my office to make or to mend laws. My business is only to execute them. If therefore the case be as you say, I must discharge the girl.'
'I hope, however, you will punish the pawnbroker,' cries Booth.
'If the girl is discharged,' cries the justice, 'so must be the pawnbroker; for, if the goods are not stolen, he cannot be guilty of receiving them knowing them to be stolen. And, besides, as to his offence, to say the truth, I am almost weary of prosecuting it; for such are the difficulties laid in the way of this prosecution, that it is almost impossible to convict any one on it. And, to speak my opinion plainly, such are the laws, and such the method of proceeding, that one would almost think our laws were rather made for the protection of rogues than for the punishment of them.'
Thus ended this examination: the thief and the receiver went about their business, and Booth departed in order to go home to his wife.
In his way home Booth was met by a lady in a chair, who, immediately upon seeing him, stopt her chair, bolted out of it, and, going directly up to him, said, 'So, Mr. Booth, you have kept your word with me.'
The lady was no other than Miss Matthews, and the speech she meant was of a promise made to her at the masquerade of visiting her within a day or two; which, whether he ever intended to keep I cannot say, but, in truth, the several accidents that had since happened to him had so discomposed his mind that he had absolutely forgot it.
Booth, however, was too sensible and too well-bred to make the excuse of forgetfulness to a lady; nor could he readily find any other. While he stood therefore hesitating, and looking not over-wise, Miss Matthews said, 'Well, sir, since by your confusion I see you have some grace left, I will pardon you on one condition, and that is that you will sup with me this night. But, if you fail me now, expect all the revenge of an injured woman.' She then bound herself by a most outrageous oath that she would complain to his wife--' And I am sure,' says she, 'she is so much a woman of honour as to do me justice. And, though I miscarried in my first attempt, be assured I will take care of my second.'
Booth asked what she meant by her first attempt; to which she answered that she had already writ his wife an account of his ill-usage of her, but that she was pleased it had miscarried. She then repeated her asseveration that she would now do it effectually if he disappointed her.
This threat she reckoned would most certainly terrify poor Booth; and, indeed, she was not mistaken; for I believe it would have been impossible, by any other menace or by any other means, to have brought him once even to balance in his mind on this question. But by this threat she prevailed; and Booth promised, upon his word and honour, to come to her at the hour she appointed. After which she took leave of him with a squeeze by the hand, and a smiling countenance, and walked back to her chair.
