Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/154

146 chaplain, the waiting-woman, and the better sort of servants in a person of quality's family, and value not now and then a kicking, or a caning; for your insolence will at last turn to good account; and from wearing a livery, you may probably soon carry a pair of colours.

When you wait behind a chair at meals, keep constantly wriggling the back of the chair, that the person behind whom you stand may know you are ready to attend him.

When you carry a parcel of china plates, if they chance to fall, as it is a frequent misfortune, your excuse must be, that a dog ran across you in the hall; that the chambermaid accidentally pushed the door against you; that a mop stood across the entry, and tripped you up; that your sleeve stuck against the key, or button of the lock.

When your master and lady are talking together in their bedchamber, and you have some suspicion that you or your fellow servants are concerned in what they say, listen at the door for the publick good of all the servants, and join all to take proper measures for preventing any innovations that may hurt the community.

Be not proud in prosperity: you have heard that fortune turns on a wheel; if you have a good place, you are at the top of the wheel. Remember how often you have been stripped, and kicked out of doors, your wages all taken up beforehand, and spent in translated red heeled shoes, secondhand toupees, and repaired laced ruffles, beside a swingeing debt to the alewife and the brandy shop. The neighbouring tapster, who before would beckon you over to a savoury bit of ox cheek in the ing,