The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

THE EXPEDITION OF HUMPHRY CLINKER 149
was cool and sober; that his courage and presence of mind never
failed him; that his address was genteel, and his behaviour void of
all cruelty and insolence; that he never encumbered himself with
watches or trinkets, nor even with banknotes, but always dealt for
ready money, and that in the current coin of the kingdom; and that
he could disguise himself and his horse in such a manner, that,
after the action, it was impossible to recognize either the one or
the other—‘This great man (said he) has reigned paramount in all
the roads within fifty miles of London above fifteen months, and
has done more business in that time, than all the rest of the pro-
fession put together; for those who pass through his hands are so
delicately dealt with, that they have no desire to give him the least
disturbance; but for all that, his race is almost run—he is now
fluttering about justice, like a moth about a candle—there are so
many lime-twigs laid in his way, that I’ll bett a cool hundred, he
swings before Christmas.’
Shall I own to you, that this portrait, drawn by a ruffian,
heightened by what I myself had observed in his deportment, has
interested me warmly in the fate of poor Martin, whom nature
seems to have intended for a useful and honourable member of
that community upon which he now preys for subsistence? It
seems, he lived some time as a clerk to a timber-merchant, whose
daughter Martin having privately married, was discarded, and
his wife turned out of doors. She did not long survive her marriage;
and Martin, turning fortune-hunter, could not supply his occa-
sions any other way, than by taking to the road, in which he has
travelled hitherto with uncommon success.—He pays his respects
regularly to Mr. Justice Buzzard, the thief-catcher-general of this
metropolis, and sometimes they smoke a pipe together very
lovingly, when the conversation generally turns upon the nature
of evidence.—The justice has given him fair warning to take care
of himself, and he has received his caution in good part.—Hitherto
he has baffled all the vigilance, art, and activity of Buzzard and his
emissaries, with such conduct as would have done honour to the
genius of a Cæsar or a Turenne, but he has one weakness, which
has proved fatal to all the heroes of his tribe, namely, an indiscreet
devotion to the fair sex, and, in all probability, he will be attacked
on this defenceless quarter.
Be that as it may, I saw the body of poor Clinker consigned to the
gaoler of Clerkenwell, to whose indulgence I recommended him