Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/153

Rh When you are ordered to stir up the fire, clean away the ashes from betwixt the bars with the firebrush.

When you are ordered to call a coach, although it be midnight, go no farther than the door, for fear of being out of the way when you are wanted; and there stand bawling, Coach, Coach, for half an hour.

Although you gentlemen in livery have the misfortune to be treated scurvily by all mankind, yet you make a shift to keep up your spirits, and sometimes arrive at considerable fortunes. I was an intimate friend to one of our brethren, who was footman to a court lady: she had an honourable employment, was sister to an earl, and the widow of a man of quality. She observed something so polite in my friend, the gracefulness with which he tripped, before her chair, and put his hair under his hat, that she made him many advances; and one day taking the air in her coach with Tom behind it, the coachman mistook the way, and stopped at a privileged chapel, where the couple were married, and Tom came home in the chariot by his lady's side: but he unfortunately taught her to drink brandy, of which she died, after having pawned all her plate to purchase it, and Tom is now a journeyman maltster.

Boucher, the famous gamester, was another of our fraternity: and when he was worth 50000l. he dunned the duke of Buckingham for an arrear of wages in his service; and I could instance many more, particularly another, whose son had one of the chief employments at court; and is sufficient to give you the following advice, which is to be pert and saucy to all mankind, especially to the . XVI.