e Ten Pound in
full of all demands, stipulating only that my Travelling charges to
London should be defrayed. This Mr. Hodge boggled at for awhile; but,
seeing me Resolute he gave way, and at last said that there was no need
for me to trouble with going to the Goldsmith in London to get the Draft
changed--"If, indeed," says he, "the unhappy young spendthrift be not
proclaimed a Bankrupt before I get this slip of paper cashed;" and that
having a small store of Gold by him, he would give me the Ten Pound
down, together with a couple of Pieces to bear my Expenses to the Town.
To this I agreed; and his Reverence handing me over the ready, we cried
Quits.
"And now, Sir," says I, "as you are no longer a Led-Parson, and I am no
longer a Lacquey, we are both, till we get Fresh Places, Gentlemen at
large, and Jack is as good as his Master, I shall be happy to crack a
bottle of Lisbon with you, and whether you pay or I pay shall be decided
by the flinging up of a Jacobus."
He declared that I was an Impudent young Fellow, with more Wickednesses
in my Heart than I had hairs in my Head; but he accepted my Invitation
to crack the bottle of Lisbon very readily, and won the Toss of me with
much Affability. So, after a joyous Rouse (which my young Head could
then stand, but I am a sad Skinker at the bottle now), the Landlord
standing in, we drank Mr. Pinchin's health and better manners to him;
and his Reverence dismissed me with a Buss and his Benediction.
"When you reach London, which is a wicked place," says he; "I prithee
get you to Highgate, and without more ado cause yourself to be sworn
upon the Horns there, never to drink Small Ale when you can get Strong,
and never to Kiss the Maid when you can Kiss the Mistress. After that,
with your Face, and your Figure, and your Foreign Travel, to say nothing
of your Amazing Impudence, and your Incorrigible habit of Lying, I think
you will do pretty well. Go thy ways, my son, and if ever you come to be
hanged, send for Parson Hodge, and he will (with the Ordinary's
permission) do everything for you in the cart that a True Blue Church
and State Man can wish. _Vale_: that is to say, get off, you vagabond,"
with which in his merry way he half pushes me out of the room at the
Inn, and I dare say that he had given a sufficiently liberal
construction to Mr. Pinchin's postscript as to cheat me out of Twenty
Pound.
And now on this worthy I must bestow a brace of Paragraphs ere I dismiss
him
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