_The Maid Servant takes out a warrant against Tom: He is
arrested, and put into a Jail, where he is forced to pay garnish._
The maid servant being thus deprived of her wages by her rapacious
mistress, and knowing that ridicule would be the best method to
expose her, went to a bailiff, a relation of her own, and told him
the case, adding, that she thought the nearest way to obtain an
effectual remedy both for her wages and her private satisfaction,
was to expose her mistress by some stroke of ridicule, which
would be matter of laughter to all the neighbours, who hated her
for her avarice and rapine, and that a comical revenge had struck
into her head on a sudden, which she determined that very day, with
his assistance to put into execution, he promised not only to give
her the best assistance in his power, but also to be himself the
instrument of her immediate revenge, whereupon she asked him if
he would take upon him to arrest the Cat, who by eating the beef
stakes, had been the occasion of her being deprived of her place,
together with her wages; she owned that she had no particular pique
of resentment against the Cat, who had been for many weeks a fellow
sufferer with herself in the article of starving, and she protested
that she would have done the same had she been a Cat, but as she
was a Woman, and not used to eat raw beef, she therefore had never
thought of stealing them; that it often happened, she used to steal a
slice of bread and cheese for her poor old master, whom her barbarous
mistress had also locked up the victuals from, and that she had run
the risque to serve him, though his wife had privately marked the
bread and cheese. Certainly said the bailiff, your cause is just,
and you have sufficient reason to complain. There is no law why a
Cat may or may not be taken for theft; horses are subject to be
impounded, and so are cows, sheep and pigs liable to imprisonment
for misdemeanors of this nature; therefore as no law exists why your
fellow servant should not be arrested, I will take it upon my self to
make out his _Mittimus_, and if his mistress thinks fit to remove him
by _habeas Corpus_, she may, but it shall cost her something, besides
the procuring you your wages; I don’t regard, says the girl, my wages
so much as my private revenge to have her exposed to her neighbours.
That, answered the bailiff, shall be done, for I will have a whole
posse of constables with me, and we will beset the house, and take
her favourite before the whole street. They parted, she to observe
the execution of her comical revenge, and he to raise the posse.
It was about the meridian hour, when the Sun is vertical
over the heads of mortals, in plain English, it was about
twelve o’clock high noon, when the bailiff appeared with his
frightful posse of scare-crows, and beset the shop, to the utter
dismay and consternation of the inhabitants of the wardrobe in
_Monmouth-street_. Mrs. _Clotilda Skinflint_, and her Cornutus, had
just sat down to a pig’s foot and vinegar, (which was the portion
allotted for her spouse’s dinner,) two roasted pigeons, with toast
and butter, being laid before herself, with a pint of that beer
commonly called porter, while a pint of _Adam_’s ale, was very likely
thought good enough to allay the thirst of her journeyman spouse and
yoke-fellow.
_Tom_ never dreamed of any prosecution in law being carried on
against him, and therefore was purring an inoffensive song, in
expectation of the skeleton of the pigeons, a leg of which he was
cranching with sensible delight, when he was interrupted by the
entrance of one of the bailiffs, who was followed by several others,
who secured the person of _Tom_, and another shewed the warrant, that
they might not be accused of doing any thing illegal, or contrary
to form, and while some of them remained to explain the nature and
legality of this seizure, he who made the caption, carried him to the
first prison which came in his way, and delivered him into _Salva
Custoda_, under the name of _Tom Filch_, at the same time giving
the goaler and the other prisoners, a facetious and short narrative
of the whole affair, and the history of the parties concerned. When
the prisoners discovered, that it was all a piece of waggery, they
entered hastily into the joke, and hearing that _Tom_ the prisoner
was the favourite particular of a substantial house-keeper, who would
in all probability release him by paying his fees; they boldly and
with one voice demanded garnish of _Tom_, who not being used to such
questions from strangers, did not think proper to answer them. Now,
if they had according to the custom of garnish, threatened to strip
him, _What could they have of a Cat but his Skin?_ But as he made no
answer to their previous question, they thought it more adviseable
to lock him in a dark cell, and called for ale, which for the joke’s
sake, was not denied them in so unprecedented a garnish, and they
sat down to regale themselves, where we shall leave them in order to
finish this chapter and begin another.