ersons and
behaviour. The partition of our rooms was one of those moveable ones
that, when taken down, served occasionally to lay them into one, for the
conveniency of as larger company; and now, my nicest search could not
shew me the shadow of a peep-hole, a circumstance which probably had not
escaped the review of the parties on the other side, whom much it stood
upon not to be deceived in it; but at length I observed a paper patch of
the same colour as the wainscot, which I took to conceal some flaw; but
then it was so high, that I was obliged to stand upon a chair to reach
it, which I did as soft as possible, and, with a point of a bodkin, soon
pierced it, and opened myself espial room sufficient. And now, applying
my eye close, I commanded the room perfectly, and could see my two
young sparks romping and pulling one another about, entirely, to my
imagination, in frolic and innocent play.

The eldes might be, on my nearest guess, towards nineteen, a tall comely
young man, in a white fustian frock, with a green velvet cape, and cut
bob-wig.

The youngest could not be above seventeen, fair, ruddy, completely well
made, and to say the truth, a sweet pretty stripling: he was too, I
fancy, a country lad, by his dress, which was a green plush frock, and
breeches of the same, white waistcoat and stockings, a jockey cap, with
his fellowish hair, long and loose, in natural curls.

But after a look of circumspection, which I saw the eldest cast every
way round the room, probably in too much hurry and heat not to overlook
the very small opening I was posted at, especially at the height it
was, whilst my eye close to it kept the light from shining through and
betraying it, he said something to his companion that presently changed
the face of things.

For now the elder began to embrace, to press and kiss the younger, to
put his hands into his bosom, and give him such manifest signs of
an amorous intention, as made me conclude the other to be a girl in
disguise: a mistake that nature kept me in countenance for, for she had
certainly made one, when she gave him the made stamp.

In the rashness then of their age, and bent as they were to accomplish
their project of preposterous pleasure, at the risk of the very worst of
consequences, where a discovery was nothing less than improbable, they
now proceeded to such lengths as soon satisfied me what they were.

For presently the eldest unbuttoned the other's breeches, and removing