Page:Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749, vol. 2).pdf/187

 get once out of compass, there are no lengths of licentiousness they are not capable of running.

One morning then, that both Mrs. Cole and Emily, were gone out for the day, and only Louisa and I (not to mention the house-maid) were left in charge of the house; whilst we were loitering away the time, in looking through the shop-windows, the son of a poor woman who earned very hard bread indeed by mending of stockings, in a stall in the neighbourhood, offers us some nosegays rang'd round a small basket; by selling of which the poor boy eked out his mother's maintenance of them both: nor was he fit for any other way of livelihood, since he was not only a perfect changeling, or idiot, but stammer'd so that there was no understanding even those sounds that his half-a-dozen, at most, animal ideas prompted him to utter.

The boys, and servants in the neighbourhood, had given him the nick-name of Good-natur'd Dick, from the soft pleton's