But, hist! I hear a band of them coming.

Slip we into this archway, and let them pass by.

I would not have my wig box snatched away; and there is no limit to the audacity of those bully beaux when they have drunk enough to give them Dutch courage.

Discretion is sometimes better than valour." So saying, he pulled Tom into a dark recess, and in a few minutes more there swaggered past about six or eight young roisterers-- singing, swearing, joking, threatening--more or less intoxicated every one of them, and boasting themselves loudly of the valiant deeds they could and would do.
They did not see the two figures in the archway.

Indeed, the greatest safety of the belated citizen was that these bullies were generally too drunk to be very observant, and that a person in hiding could generally escape notice.