Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/111

Rh you wrenched your foot against a stone, and were forced to stay three hours in a shop, before you could stir a step: some nastiness was thrown on you out of a garret-window, and you were ashamed to come home before you were cleaned, and the smell went off: you were pressed for the sea-service, and carried before a justice of peace, who kept you three hours before he examined you, and you got off with much ado: a bailiff by mistake seized you for a debtor, and kept you the whole evening in a spunging house: you were told your master had gone to a tavern, and came to some mischance, and your grief was so great that you inquired for his honour in a hundred taverns between Pall-mall and Temple-bar.

Take all tradesmen's parts against your master, and when you are sent to buy any thing, never offer to cheapen it, but generously pay the full demand. This is highly to your master's honour, and may be some shillings in your pocket; and you are to consider, if your master has paid too much, he can better afford the loss than a poor tradesman.

Never submit to stir a finger in any business, but that for which you were particularly hired. For example, if the groom be drunk, or absent, and the butler be ordered to shut the stable-door, the answer is ready, An' please your honour, I don't understand horses: if a corner of the hanging wants a single nail to fasten it, and the footman be directed to tack it up, he may say, he does not understand that sort of work, but his honour may send for the upholsterer.

Masters and ladies are usually quarrelling with the servants for not shutting the doors after them: but neither masters nor ladies consider, that those Rh