Page:Fun upon fun, or, Leper the tailor (1).pdf/15

 his sides were like to burst, and gave Leper half-a-crown to drink.

Leper was not long done with his apprenticeship till he set up for himself, and got a journeyman and an apprentice, was coming into very good business, and had he restrained his roguish tricks, he might have done very well. He and his lads being employed to work in a farmer's house where the housewife was a great miser, and snivelled through her nose greatly when she spoke. In the morning when she went to make the potage, she made a fashion of washing the pot, which to appearance seemed to him to have been among the first that had been made ; then sets it before the tire till she went to the well, in which time Leper looking into it, sees two great holes tapped with clouts, he takes up his goose, and holds it as high as his head, then lets t drop into the pot, which knocked out the bottom of it. Presently in comes the wife with the water, and pours it into the pot. which set the fireside all in a damn, for still s she poured in, it ran out: the wife being short-sighted, or what they call sand blind, cooks into the pot, holds up both her hands and cries, 'Losh, preserve me, sirs, for the rip atween the twa holes is broken.' Says