Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/171

Rh market, and nobody will take our word for sixpence. A very fine spark this esquire South! My husband took him in a dirty snottynosed boy; it was the business of half the servants to attend him, the rogue did bawl and make such a noise: sometimes he fell in the fire and burnt his face, sometimes broke his shins clambering over the benches, often pissed abed, and always came in so dirty, as if he had been dragged through the kennel at a boarding-school. He lost his money at chuck-farthing, shufflecap, and all-fours; sold his books, pawned his linen, which we were always forced to redeem. Then the whole generation of him are so in love wich bagpipes and puppetshows! I wish you knew what my husband has paid at the pastry-cook's and confectioner's for Naples biscuit, tarts, custards, and sweetmeats. All this while my husband considered him as a gentleman of a good family that had fallen into decay, gave him good education, and has settled him in a good creditable way of living, having procured him, by his interest, one of the best places of the country: and what return, think you, does this fine gentleman make us? He will hardly give me or my husband a good word, or a civil expression: instead of sir and madam, (which though I say it, is our due) he calls us goody and gaffer suchaone: says, he did us a great deal of honour to board with us: huffs and dings at such a rate, because we will not spend the little we have left, to get him the title and estate of lord Strutt: and then, forsooth, we shall have the honour to be his woollen-drapers. Besides, esquire Rh