The passion for languages had indeed caught hold of Borrow.

Among my Borrow papers I find a memorandum in the handwriting of his stepdaughter in which she says: I have often heard his mother say, that when a mere child of eight or nine years, all his pocket-money was spent in purchasing foreign Dictionaries and Grammars; he formed an acquaintance with an old woman who kept a bookstall in the market-place of Norwich, whose son went voyages to Holland with cattle, and brought home Dutch books, which were eagerly bought by little George.

One day the old woman was crying, and told him that her son was in prison.

'For doing what ?' asked the child.

'For taking a silk handkerchief out of a gentleman's pocket.' 'Then,' said the boy, 'your son stole the pocket handkerchief ?' 'No dear, no, my son did not steal,--he only glyfaked.' We have no difficulty in recognising here the heroine of the Moll Flanders episode in _Lavengro_.