d from paying the last quarter of his interest precisely at the
appointed term, for which reason he should be utterly void of cash, and
therefore requested that Crabtree would accommodate him with an hundred
pieces of his next remittance from the country.

This demand galled and perplexed the old man to such a degree, that
the muscles of his face assumed a contraction peculiarly virulent, and
exhibited the character of Diogenes with a most lively expression; he
knew that a confession of his true situation would furnish Pickle with
an opportunity to make reprisals upon him, with intolerable triumph;
and that, by a downright refusal to supply his wants, he would for ever
forfeit his friendship and esteem, and might provoke him to take ample
vengeance for his sordid behaviour, by exposing him, in his native
colours, to the resentment of those whom he had so long deceived. These
considerations kept him some time in a most rancorous state of suspense,
which Peregrine affected to misinterpret, by bidding him freely declare
his suspicion, if he did not think it safe to comply with his request,
and he would make shift elsewhere.

This seeming misconstruction increased the torture of the misanthrope,
who, with the utmost irritation of feature, "Oons!" cried he, "what
villainy have you noted in my conduct, that you treat me like a rascally
usurer?" Peregrine very gravely replied, that the question needed no
answer; "for," said he, "had I considered you as a usurer, I would have
come with a security under my arm; but, all evasion apart, will you
stead me? will you pleasure me? shall I have the money?"--"Would it were
in your belly, with a barrel of gunpowder!" exclaimed the enraged cynic;
"since I must be excruciated, read that plaguy paper! 'Sblood! why
didn't nature clap a pair of long ears and a tail upon me, that I might
be a real ass, and champ thistles on some common, independent of my
fellow-creatures? Would I were a worm, that I might creep into the
earth, and thatch my habitation with a single straw; or rather a wasp
or a viper, that I might make the rascally world feel my resentment. But
why do I talk of rascality? folly, folly, is the scourge of life! Give
me a scoundrel, so he be a sensible one, and I will put him in my heart
of hearts! but a fool is more mischievous than famine, pestilence, and
war. The idiotical hag that writes, or causes to be writ, this same
letter, has ruined her family, and broke her husband's he