Page:Merry tricks of Leper the taylor.pdf/4

4 To get him kept from mischief, she prevailed with a taylor to take him an apprentice, he settled and was peaceable for some time, until he got so much his trade on his finger ends as he might pass for a journeyman, and then he was indifferent whether he stayed with his master or not; his mistress gave him but very little meat when he wrought at home so he liked best to be in other houses where he got meat and diversion.

Leper being resolved on revenge against his mistress for thin kail, no kitchen, and little bread; for though flesh was boiled in the pot, none for poor Leper and his master, but a little bit on Sunday's, and all the bones were kept a put in the pot, to make the broth throughout the week. Leper perceived always when she took off the pot, she turned her back and took out the flesh, and sets it in shelf in her own bedroom; one night after work, he steals out a pan, cuts a piece of flesh out of a dead horse, and then goes to a lime kiln and boils it; next day his master being from him, his landlady and him being in the house, after she had off the pot as usual, and taken out her bit of good beef, he goes out for some