tranger. "The trade is so
vastly stocked with them that really, unless they come out with the name
of Whitefield or Wesley, or some other such great man, as a bishop, or
those sort of people, I don't care to touch. However, I will, if you
please, take the manuscript with me to town, and send you my opinion of
it in a very short time."

When, however, Adams began to describe the nature of his sermons the
bookseller drew back, on the ground that the clergy would be certain to
cry down such a book.

An accident prevented Mr. Adams from pursuing a market for his sermons
any further, which he would have done in spite of the advice of Barnabas
and the bookseller. This accident was, that those sermons which the
parson was travelling to London to publish were left behind; what he had
mistaken for them in the saddle-bags were three shirts, which Mrs.
Adams, who thought her husband would need shirts rather than sermons on
his journey, had carefully provided for him.

Joseph, concerned at the disappointment to his friend, begged him to
pursue his journey all the same, and promised he would himself return
with the books to him with the utmost expedition.

"No, thank you, child," answered Adams; "it shall not be so. What would
it avail me to tarry in the great city unless I had my discourses with
me? No; as this accident has happened, I am resolved to return back to
my cure, together with you; which, indeed, my inclination sufficiently
leads me to."

Mr. Adams, whose credit was good wherever he was known, having borrowed
a guinea from a servant belonging to a coach-and-six, who had been
formerly one of his parishioners, discharged the bill for Joseph and
himself, and the two travellers set off.

_III.--More Adventures_

Adams and Joseph Andrews being for a time separated on the road, through
the former's absent-mindedness, it fell to the lot of the parson to
hasten to the assistance of a damsel who in a lonely place was being
attacked by some ruffian.

Adams was as strong as he was brave, and having rescued the maiden, took
her under his protection. It was too dark for either to identify the
other, but on Mr. Adams ejaculating the name of Joseph Andrews, for
whose safety he was anxious, his companion recognised his voice, and the
parson was quickly informed that it was Fanny who was by his side.

The fact was the poor girl had heard of Joseph's misfortune from the
servants of a coach which had stopped at the inn while