Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/173

Rh circumstances; he has a numerous family, and lives from hand to mouth; his children don't eat a bit of good victuals from one years end to the other, but live upon salt herring, sower crud, and borecole; he does his utmost, poor fellow, to keep things even in the world, and has exerted himself beyond his ability in this lawsuit; but he really has not wherewithal to go on. What signifies this hundred pounds? place it upon your side of the account; it is a great deal to poor Frog, and a trifle to you." This has been Hocus's constant language, and I am sure he has had obligations enough to us to have acted another part.

D. D. No doubt Hocus meant all this for the best, but he is a tenderhearted, charitable man; Frog is indeed in hard circumstances.

Mrs. B. Hard circumstances! I swear this is provoking to the last degree. All the time of the lawsuit, as fast as I have mortgaged, Frog has purchased: from a plain tradesman with a shop, warehouse, and a country hut, with a dirty fishpond at the end of it, he is now grown a very rich country gentleman, with a noble landed estate, noble palaces, manors, parks, gardens, and farms, finer than any we were ever master of. Is it not strange, when my husband disbursed great sums every term, Frog should be purchasing some new farm or manor? So that if this lawsuit lasts, he will be far the richest man in his country. What is worse than all this, he steals away my customers every day; twelve of the richest and the best have left my shop by his persuasion, and whom, to my certain knowledge, he has under bonds Rh