Of a Meeting near Fulham
I put up my head haughtily. “Sink me, do you insinuate ’twas I?” I cried.
“You have been long in taking my meaning,” he returned sardonically.
Here was the point for the diversion I had contrived, and so says I, suddenly changing my tone to sullenness, “You cannot prove it.”
“I think,” he says with a laugh, “my word will serve with the justices against a common scampsman.”
“You will not prosecute?” I asked in a cringing note, and Old Rowley pricked up his ears.
“Troth, and I will even now have you charged and clapped in Newgate,” says he angrily.
“What you may do, you may do,” says I very surly, “but I can prove an alibi”
“That,” he says with a sneer, “you shall have the opportunity of doing in the dock.”
“I can bring a witness to support it beyond dispute,” I says.
“Indeed,” he replied ironic, “and who may that be?”
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