lot o' cheek,
If they war'n't stopp'd they'd go it for a week.

BRISKET.
But they're so wulgar, Bob, and call sich names
As quite the tag-rag of St. Giles' shames
The press too is so wenal, that they think
All party herrors for the sake o' chink.

BOB.
But ain't there no false lovers in them tales,
Vot hover wirgin hinnocence perwails?

BRISKET.
Vy, yes, but in the end the right one's married,
And after much to do the point is carried
So give me love sincere and tender,
And all the rest's not worth a bender.

SCENE XIX.

AN EPISTLE

FROM

SAMUEL SOFTLY, ESQ. TO HIS FRIEND, RICHARD GUBBINS, ESQ. OF TOOLEY
STREET.

O! DICK!

Such a misfortin' has you never heard on as come upon your friend. I'll
jist give you a breef houtline of the circumstantials as near as my
flurry vill let me. T'other mornin' I vips up my gun for to go
a-shootin', and packin' up my hammunition, and some sanwidges, I bids
adoo to this wile smoky town, vith the intention of gettin' a little
hair. Vell! on I goes a-visshin' and thinkin' on nothin', and happy as
the bumblebees as vos a-numming around me. Vell! a'ter an hour or more's
valking, not an house nor a brick vos wisible.

Natur', in all her werdur', vos smilin' like a fat babby in its maternal
harms! But, as somebody has it--

"Man never ain't, but al'ays to be bless'd,"

and I'm bless'd if that ain't true too, as you shall see presently. Vell!
I pops at von bird and then at another; but vether the poor creturs vos
unaccustom'd to guns, and so vos frighten'd, I don't know, but somehow I
couldn't hit 'em no-how.

Vell! and so I vos jist a-chargin' agin ven a great he-fellow, in a ruff
coat and partic'lar large viskers, accostes me (ciwilly I must say, but
rayther familler)--

"Birds shy?" says he.

"Werry;--ain't hit nothin'," says I.

"I'll tell you vot it is, young gentleman," says he, "it's the unevenness
o' the ground!"

"D've think so?" says I.

"Sure on it," says he; "I'm a hold sojer! Know this 'ere place, and have
picked up many a good dinner in it. Look at them fe'l'fares yonder,"
says he, "on'y let me have a slap at 'em for you, and see if I don't
finish some on 'em in the twinkling of a pig's visper."

In course I felt obleeged by sich a hoffer, and hands him the gun. Vell!
I vos a-follerin' him quite pleased, ven he visks round, and puttin' the
muzzle o' the hinstrument fist agin my vescoat, says he, "Now you've lent
us your gun, you m