ack Bread, from some
one not wholly without Bowels of Compassion.

But I had not been here more than a month when the instances of my
master at length prevailed, and I too was Enlarged; only some Fifty
Florins being laid upon me by way of fine. This mulct was paid perforce
by Mr. Pinchin; for as 'twas through his mad folly, and no fault of my
own, that I had come to Sorrow, he was in all Justice and Equity bound
to bear me harmless in the Consequences. He was fain, however, to make
some Demur, and to Complain, in his usual piteous manner, of being so
amerced.

"Suppose you had been sentenced to Five Hundred Blows of a Stick,
sirrah,"--'twas thus he put the case to me, logically enough,--"would
you have expected me to pay for thee in carcase, as now I am paying for
thee in Purse?"

"Circumstances alter cases," interposes Mr. Hodge in my behalf. "Here is
luckily no question of Stripes at all. John may bless his Stars that he
hath gotten off without a Rib-Roasting; and to your Worship, after the
Tune they have made you dance to, and the Piper you have paid, what is
this miserable little Fine of Fifty Florins?" So my Master paid; and
Leaving another Ten Florins for the poor Losels in the Gaol to drink his
health in, we departed from that place of Durance, thinking ourselves,
and with reason, very well out of it.

Servants are not always so lucky when they too implicitly obey the
behests of their Masters, or, in a hot fever of Fidelity, stand up for
them in Times of Danger or Desperate Affrays. Has there not ever been
brought under your notice that famous French Law Case, of the Court
Lady,--the Dame de Liancourt, I think she was called,--against whom
another Dame had a Spite, either for her Beauty, or her Wit, or her
Riches' sake? She, riding one day in her Coach-and-Six by a cross-road,
comes upon the Dame de Liancourt, likewise in her Coach-and-Six, both
ladies having the ordinary complement of Running Footmen. My Lady who
had a Spite against her of Liancourt whispers to her Lacqueys; and these
poor Faithful Rogues, too eager to obey their Mistress's commands, ran
to the other coach-door, pulled out that unlucky Dame de Liancourt, and
then and there inflicted on her that shameful chastisement which jealous
Venus, as the Poetry books say, did, once upon a time, order to poor
Psyche; and which, even in our own times, so I have heard, Madame du
Barry, the last French King's Favourite, did cause Four Chambermaids to
infl