Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/235

Rh there was much plate missing; being caught with a couple of silver spoons in his pocket, with their handles wrenched off, he said, he was only going to carry them to the goldsmith's to be mended: that the said Timothy was hated by all the honest servant for his ill-conditioned, splenetick tricks, but especially for his slanderous tongue; traducing them to their mistress, as drunkards, thieves, and whoremasters: that the said Timothy by lying stories used to set all the family together by the ears, taking delight to make them fight and quarrel; particularly one day sitting at table, he spoke words to this effect: "I am of opinion," quoth he, "that little short fellows, such as we are, have better hearts, and could beat the tall fellows: I wish it came to a fair trial; I believe these long fellows, as sightly as they are, should find their jackets well thwacked ."

A parcel of tall fellows, who thought themselves affronted by the discourse, took up the quarrel, and to't they went, the tall men and the low men, which continues still a faction in the family to the great disorder of our mistress's affairs: the said Timothy carried this frolick so far, that he proposed to his mistress, that she should entertain no servant, that was above four foot seven inches high; and for that purpose had prepared a gage, by which they were to be measured. The good old gentlewoman was not so simple, as to go into his project; she began to smell a rat. "This Trim," quoth she, "is an odd sort of a fellow; methinks he makes a strange figure with that ragged, tattered coat, appearing under his livery; can't he go spruce and clean like Rh