Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/249

Rh by the people of his own family." In all these epistles, blockhead, dunce, ass, coxcomb, were the best epithets he gave poor John. In others he threatened, "That he, esquire South, and the rest of the tradesmen, would lay Lewis down upon his back and beat out his teeth, if he did not retire immediately, and break up the meeting."

I fancy I need not tell my reader, that John often changed colour as he read, and that his fingers itched to give Nic. a good slap on the chops; but he wisely moderated his cholerick temper. "I saved this fellow," quoth he, "from the gallows, when he ran away from his last master, because I thought he was harshly treated; but the rogue was no sooner safe under my protection, than he began to lie, pilfer, and steal like the devil . When I first set him up in a warm house, he had hardly put up his sign, when he began to debauch my best customers from me . Then it was his constant practice to rob my fish-ponds, not only to feed his family, but to trade with the fishmongers: I connived at the fellow, till he began to tell me, that they were his as much as mine. In my manor of Eastcheap , because it lay at some distance from my constant inspection, he broke down my fences, robbed my orchards, and beat my servants. When I used to reprimand him for his tricks, he would talk saucily, lie, and brazen it out as if he had done nothing Rh