Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/251

Rh Now I declare to all mankind, I should be ready to sacrifice my own concerns to his quiet; but the care of his interest, and that of the honest tradesmen that are embarked with us, keeps me from entering into this composition. What shall become of those poor creatures? The thoughts of their impending ruin disturbs my night's rest, therefore I desire they may speak for themselves. If they are willing to give up this affair, I shan't make two words of it".

John Bull begged him to lay aside that immoderate concern for him; and withal put him in mind, that the interest of those tradesmen had not sat quite so heavy upon him some years ago, on a like occasion. Nic. answered little to that, but immediately pulled out a boatswain's whistle. Upon the first whiff, the tradesmen came jumping into the room, and began to surround Lewis, like so many yelping curs about a great boar; or, to use a modester simile, like duns at a great lord's levee the morning he goes into the country. One pulled him by his sleeve, another by the skirt, a third hollaed in his ear: they began to ask him for all that had been taken from their forefathers by stealth, fraud, force, or lawful purchase; some asked for manors, others for acres, that lay convenient for them: that he would pull down his fences, level his ditches: all agreed in one common demand, that he should be purged, sweated, vomited, and starved, till he came to a sizeable bulk, like that of his neighbours: one modestly asked him leave to call him brother; Nic. Frog demanded two things, to be his porter and his fishmonger, to keep the keys of his Rh