ou will not employ Lewis
Baboon, or else we will take our remedy at law, clap an action upon you
of L20,000 for old debts, seize and distrain your goods and chattels,
which, considering your lordship's circumstances, will plunge you into
difficulties, from which it will not be easy to extricate yourself.
Therefore we hope, when your lordship has better considered on it, you
will comply with the desire of

Your loving friends,

JOHN BULL.
NIC. FROG.

Some of Bull's friends advised him to take gentler methods with the
young lord, but John naturally loved rough play. It is impossible to
express the surprise of the Lord Strutt upon the receipt of this
letter. He was not flush in ready money either to go to law or clear
old debts, neither could he find good bail. He offered to bring matters
to a friendly accommodation, and promised, upon his word of honour,
that he would not change his drapers; but all to no purpose, for Bull
and Frog saw clearly that old Lewis would have the cheating of him.

How Bull and Frog went to law with Lord Strutt about the premises,
and were joined by the rest of the tradesmen.

All endeavours of accommodation between Lord Strutt and his drapers
proved vain. Jealousies increased, and, indeed, it was rumoured abroad
that Lord Strutt had bespoke his new liveries of old Lewis Baboon. This
coming to Mrs. Bull's ears, when John Bull came home, he found all his
family in an uproar. Mrs. Bull, you must know, was very apt to be
choleric. "You sot," says she, "you loiter about ale-houses and
taverns, spend your time at billiards, ninepins, or puppet-shows, or
flaunt about the streets in your new gilt chariot, never minding me nor
your numerous family. Don't you hear how Lord Strutt has bespoke his
liveries at Lewis Baboon's shop? Don't you see how that old fox steals
away your customers, and turns you out of your business every day, and
you sit like an idle drone, with your hands in your pockets? Fie upon
it. Up, man, rouse thyself; I'll sell to my shift before I'll be so
used by that knave."[178] You must think Mrs. Bull had been pretty well
tuned up by Frog, who chimed in with her learned harangue. No further
delay now, but to counsel learned in the law they go, who unanimously
assured them both of justice and infallible success of their lawsuit.

I told you before that old Lewis Baboon was a sort of a
Jack-of-all-trades, which made the rest of the tradesmen jealous, as
well as Bul