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I was yet standing there, half stunned by my loss and the

suddenness of it all, when a tilbury came slowly round a bend in

the road, the driver of which nodded lazily in his seat while his

horse, a sorry, jaded animal, plodded wearily up the steep slope

of the hill As he approached I hailed him loudly, upon which he

suddenly dived down between his knees and produced a brass-bound

blunderbuss

"What's to do?" cried he, a thick-set, round-faced fellow,

"what's to do, eh?" and he covered me with the wide mouth of the

blunderbuss

"Thieves!" said I, "I've been robbed, and not three reat relief, and with the color

returning to his plump cheeks, "is that the way of it?"

"It is," said I, "and a very bad way; the fellow has left me but

twopence in the world"

"Twopence--ah?"

"Come," I went on, "you are armed, I see; the thief took to the

brushwood, here, not three o; we may catch hi

"Yes, don't I tell you he has stolen all the money I possess?"