Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/356

348 twelfth so soon; I doubt you will stay longer for the rest. I am so afraid you have got my fourteenth while I am writing this; and I would always have one letter from Presto reading, one travelling, and one writing. As for the box, I now believe it lost. It is directed for Mr. Curry at his house in Capel street, &c. I had a letter yesterday from Dr. Raymond in Chester, who says, he sent his man every where, and cannot find it; and God knows whether Mr. Smyth will have better success. Sterne spoke to him, and I writ to him with the bottle of palsy water; that bottle, I hope, will not miscarry: I long to hear you have it. O, faith, you have too good an opinion of Presto's care. I am negligent enough of every thing but MD, and I should not have trusted Sterne. But it shall not go so: I will have one more tug for it. As to what you say of goodman Peasly and Isaac, I answer as I did before. Fy, child, you must not give yourself the way to believe any such thing: and afterward, only for curiosity, you may tell me how those things are approved, and how you like them; and whether they instruct you in the present course of affairs, and whether they are printed in your town, or only sent from hence. Sir Andrew Fountaine is recovered; so take your sorrow again, but do not keep it, fling it to the dogs. And does little MD walk, indeed? I am glad of it at heart. Yes, we have done with the plague here: it was very saucy in you to pretend to have it before your betters. Your intelligence that the story is false about the officers forced to sell, is admirable. You may see them all three every day, no more in the army than you. Twelve shillings for mending the strong box; that is, for putting a farthing's worth of