HIS SKILL IN PHYSIOGNOMY IS DOUBTED.
AFTER he had been some time with the company he had appointed to meet,
and the last bottle was called for, he first recollected that he would be
again at a loss how to discharge his share of the reckoning. He applied,
therefore, to one of them, with whom he was most intimate, acknowledging
that he had not a farthing of money about him; and, upon being jocularly
asked the reason, acquainted them with the two adventures we have just
now related. One of the company asked him if the old man in Hyde Park
did not wear a brownish coat, with a narrow gold edging, and his
companion an old green frock, with a buff-coloured waistcoat. Upon
Harley’s recollecting that they did, “Then,” said he, “you may be
thankful you have come off so well; they are two as noted sharpers, in
their way, as any in town, and but t’other night took me in for a much
larger sum. I had some thoughts of applying to a justice, but one does
not like to be seen in those matters.”
Harley answered, “That he could not but fancy the gentleman was mistaken,
as he never saw a face promise more honesty than that of the old man he
had met with.”—“His face!” said a grave-looking man, when sat opposite to
him, squirting the juice of his tobacco obliquely into the grate. There
was something very emphatical in the action, for it was followed by a
burst of laughter round the table. “Gentlemen,” said Harley, “you are
disposed to be merry; it may be as you imagine, for I confess myself
ignorant of the town; but there is one thing which makes me hear the loss
of my money with temper: the young fellow who won it must have been
miserably poor; I observed him borrow money for the stake from his
friend: he had distress and hunger in his countenance: be his character
what it may, his necessities at least plead for him.” At this there was
a louder laugh than before. “Gentlemen,” said the lawyer, one of whose
conversations with Harley we have already recorded, “here’s a pretty
fellow for you! to have heard him talk some nights ago, as I did, you
might have sworn he was a saint; yet now he games with sharpers, and
loses his money, and is bubbled by a fine tale of the Dead Sea, and pawns
his watch; here are sanctified doings with a witness!”
“Young gentleman,” said his friend on the other side of the table, “let
me advise you to be a little more cautious for the future; and as for
faces—you may look into them to know whether a man’s nose be a long or a
short one.”