Well—replied I—we’ll wait a minute for thy driver:
——He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the
opposite way——
I understand thee perfectly, answered I——If thou takest a wrong step in
this affair, he will cudgel thee to death——Well! a minute is but a
minute, and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be
set down as ill-spent.
He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and
in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and
unsavouriness, had dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and
pick’d it up again——God help thee, _Jack!_ said I, thou hast a bitter
breakfast on’t—and many a bitter day’s labour,—and many a bitter blow,
I fear, for its wages——’tis all—all bitterness to thee, whatever life
is to others.——And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as
bitter, I dare say, as soot—(for he had cast aside the stem) and thou
hast not a friend perhaps in all this world, that will give thee a
macaroon.——In saying this, I pull’d out a paper of ’em, which I had
just purchased, and gave him one—and at this moment that I am telling
it, my heart smites me, that there was more of pleasantry in the
conceit, of seeing _how_ an ass would eat a macaroon——than of
benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act.
When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I press’d him to come in——the poor
beast was heavy loaded——his legs seem’d to tremble under him——he hung
rather backwards, and as I pull’d at his halter, it broke short in my
hand——he look’d up pensive in my face—“Don’t thrash me with it—but if
you will, you may”——If I do, said I, I’ll be d——d.
The word was but one-half of it pronounced, like the abbess of
_Andoüillet_’s—(so there was no sin in it)—when a person coming in, let
fall a thundering bastinado upon the poor devil’s crupper, which put an
end to the ceremony.
_ Out upon it!_
cried I——but the interjection was equivocal——and, I think, wrong placed
too—for the end of an osier which had started out from the contexture
of the ass’s panier, had caught hold of my breeches pocket, as he
rush’d by me, and rent it in the most disastrous direction you can
imagine——so that the
_Out upon it!_ in my opinion, should have come in here——but this I
leave to be settled by
The
REVIEWERS
of
MY BREECHES,
which I have brought over along with me for that purpose.