Page:Merry frolicks, or, The comical cheats of Swalpo, a notorious pick-pocket.pdf/24

 pretending to be vanquiſhed he ſat down. Roger ſtill keeping the field of honour, going up and down, ſtrutting as a new enſign, or a crow in a gutter, and waving his breeches about his head, he proclaimed the victory. The ointment then began to work a little upon his buttocks, which ſet him a rubbing and ſcratching —and as ſcratching, eating, and fighting, wants nothing but a beginning, the more he clawed, the more he might.

Roger made ſeveral wry faces, and runs to the next room, where he cut away the flap of his ſhirt, and put on his breeches; he returned again to the company, and continuing to ſcratch a good while after, he told them he deſerved what he had got, and for the time to come would remember theſe proverbs, viz.

The reckoning being paid, the Gentlemen departed, and Roger went down into the country to his wife Joan.