The worthy Corporal had not the slightest shame regarding his own profession, and cut many jokes with Mrs.Cat about her late one; her attempt to murder the Count, and her future prospects as a wife.
And here, having brought him upon the scene again, we may as well shortly narrate some of the principal circumstances which befell him after his sudden departure from Birmingham; and which he narrated with much candour to Mrs.Catherine.
He rode the Captain's horse to Oxford (having exchanged his military dress for a civil costume on the road), and at Oxford he disposed of "George of Denmark," a great bargain, to one of the heads of colleges.
As soon as Mr.Brock, who took on himself the style and title of Captain Wood, had sufficiently examined the curiosities of the University, he proceeded at once to the capital: the only place for a gentleman of his fortune and figure.
Here he read, with a great deal of philosophical indifference, in the Daily Post, the Courant, the Observator, the Gazette, and the chief journals of those days, which he made a point of examining at "Button's" and "Will's," an accurate description of his person, his clothes, and the horse he rode, and a promise of fifty guineas' reward to any person who would give an account of him (so that he might be captured) to Captain Count Galgenstein at Birmingham, to Mr.Murfey at the "Golden Ball" in the Savoy, or Mr.Bates at the "Blew Anchor in Pickadilly." But Captain Wood, in an enormous full-bottomed periwig that cost him sixty pounds,[*] with high red heels to his shoes, a silver sword, and a gold snuff-box, and a large wound (obtained, he said, at the siege of Barcelona), which disfigured much of his countenance, and caused him to cover one eye, was in small danger, he thought, of being mistaken for Corporal Brock, the deserter of Cutts's; and strutted along the Mall with as grave an air as the very best nobleman who appeared there.
He was generally, indeed, voted to be very good company; and as his expenses were unlimited ("A few convent candlesticks," my dear, he used to whisper, "melt into a vast number of doubloons"), he commanded as good society as he chose to ask for: and it was speedily known as a fact throughout town, that Captain Wood, who had served under His Majesty Charles III.

of Spain, had carried off the diamond petticoat of Our Lady of Compostella, and lived upon the proceeds of the fraud.

People were good Protestants in those days, and many a one longed to have been his partner in the pious plunder.
* In the ingenious contemporary history of Moll Flanders, a periwig is mentioned as costing that sum.
All surmises concerning his wealth, Captain Wood, with much discretion, encouraged.

He contradicted no report, but was quite ready to confirm all; and when two different rumours were positively put to him, he used only to laugh, and say, "My dear sir, _I_ don't make the stories; but I'm not called upon to deny them; and I give you fair warning, that I shall assent to every one of them; so you may believe them or not, as you please." And so he had the reputation of being a gentleman, not only wealthy, but discreet.

In truth, it was almost a pity that worthy Brock had not been a gentleman born; in which case, doubtless, he would have lived and died as became his station; for he spent his money like a gentleman, he loved women like a gentleman, he would fight like a gentleman, he gambled and got drunk like a gentleman.