nches of imposition throughout the whole kingdom of England, allowing
these ministers a certain proportion of the profits accruing from their
industry and skill, and reserving the greatest share for the benefit of
the common stock, which was chargeable with the expense of fitting
out individuals in their various pursuits, as well as with the loss
sustained in the course of their adventures. Some whose persons and
qualifications are by the company judged adequate to the task, exert
their talents in making love to ladies of fortune, being accommodated
with money and accoutrements for that purpose, after having given their
bonds payable to one or other of the directors, on the day of marriage,
for certain sums, proportioned to the dowries they are to receive.
Others versed in the doctrine of chances, and certain secret
expediences, frequent all those places where games of hazard are
allowed: and such as are masters in the arts of billiards, tennis,
and bowls, are continually lying in wait, in all the scenes of
these diversions, for the ignorant and unwary. A fourth class attend
horse-races, being skilled in those mysterious practices by which the
knowing ones are taken in. Nor is this community unfurnished with those
who lay wanton wives and old rich widows under contribution, and extort
money, by prostituting themselves to the embraces of their own sex,
and then threatening their admirers with prosecution. But their most
important returns are made by that body of their undertakers who
exercise their understandings in the innumerable stratagems of the card
table, at which no sharper can be too infamous to be received, and even
caressed by persons of the highest rank and distinction. Among other
articles of intelligence, our young gentleman learned, that those
agents, by whom their guest was broke, and expelled from Bath, had
constituted a bank against all sporters, and monopolized the advantage
in all sorts of play. He then told Gauntlet, that, if he would put
himself under his direction, he would return with them, and lay such a
scheme as would infallibly ruin the whole society at billiards, as he
knew that Godfrey excelled them all in his knowledge of that game.

The soldier excused himself from engaging in any party of that kind, and
after dinner the travellers parted; but, as the conversation between
the two friends turned upon the information they had received, Peregrine
projected a plan for punishing those villainous