A _Man_ at a _Fish Dinner_.
A Certain Prince took a Learned Man to Dinner with him: It was a _Fasting
Day_ it seems, and a great deal of Large Grown _Fish_ there was at the
Table; only at the Lower End, where the Philosopher sate, there were
none but Little Ones. He took out several of them One by One, and first
put his Mouth to the Fishes Ear, and then the Fishes Mouth to his own
Ear, and so laid ’em in whole again, without so much as Tasting one Bit
of ’em. Come Sir, says the Master of the Feast, You have some pleasant
Thought or other in your Head now, Pray let the Company take part with
ye. Why Sir, says he, My Father had the Ill Fortune about Two Years ago
to be Cast away upon this Coast; and I was asking these Little Fishes
if they could tell me what became of his Body: They said No, they could
not, for ’twas before their Time: But if I Examin’d the Great Ones, ’tis
possible they might be able to say somewhat to’t. The Prince was so well
pleas’d with the Fancy, that he Order’d his Mess to be Chang’d, and from
that time forward, no body welcomer to the Table then this Man.
The MORAL.
_It is a Master-piece in Conversation, to intermix Wit and Liberty so
Discreetly, that there may be nothing in’t that’s Bitter, Course, or out
of Season._