Page:Fun upon fun, or, The comical and merry tricks of Leper the tailor (1).pdf/18

18 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 not very cleanly in making meat, and sneeveled through her nose greatly when she spoke. In the morning, when she went to make their pottage, she made a fashion of washing the pot, which to appearance seemed to him to have been amongst the first that had been made; then she set it before the fire till she went to the well, in which time Leper, looking into it, sees two great holes in the bottom stopped with clouts, he takes up his goose and holds it as high as his head, then lets it 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.