o waylay you at night, and give you the private Stab, as you
deserve; but so sure as you are your father's son, if you don't make me
this instant a Handsome Apology, I will cudgel you till there is not a
whole bone in your body."

The young Ruffian--he was not such a coward as Squire Pinchin, but
rather murderous--makes no more do, but draws upon me. I caught up a
quarter-staff that lay handy (for we were always exercising ourselves at
athletic amusements), struck the weapon from his grasp, and hit him a
sounding thwack across the shins that brought him down upon his
marrow-bones.

"Below the Belt!" he cries out, holding up his hands. "Foul! foul!"

"Foul be hanged!" I answered. "I'm not going to fight, but to Beat You;"
and I rushed upon him, shortening the Staff, and would have belaboured
him Soundly, but that he saw it was no use contending against John
Dangerous, and very humbly craved a parley. He Apologised as I had
Demanded, and lent me Twenty Guineas, and we parted on the most friendly
terms.

This Lord essayed, notwithstanding, to do me much harm in Town, saying
that I had used him with black Cruelty, had re-requited his many favours
with gross Treachery, and the like Falsehoods, until I was obliged to
send him a Message to this purport: that unless he desisted, I should be
obliged to keep my promise as to the Cudgel. Upon which he presently
surceased. So much meanness had he, even, as to fudge up a pretended
debt of nineteen guineas against me as for money lent, for the which I
was arrested by bailiffs and conveyed--being taken at Jonathan's--to a
vile spunging-house in Little Bell Alley, Moorfields; but the keeper of
the House stood my friend, and procured a Bail for me in the shape of an
Honest Gentleman, who was to be seen every day about Westminster Hall
with a straw in his shoe, and for a crown and a dinner at the
eating-house would suddenly become worth five hundred a year, or at
least swear himself black in the face that such was his estate:--which
was all that was required. And when it came to justifying of Bail before
the Judges, what so easy as to hire a suit of clothes in Monmouth
Street, and send him into court fully equipped as a reputable gentleman?
However, there was no occasion for this, for on the very night of my
enlargement I won fifty guineas at the tables; and walking very Bold to
my Lord's House, sends up the nineteen guineas to my Lord with a note,
asking to what lawyer I should pay