feverish and exciting for a Man of warm temperament.
'Tis killing work when your Bed and Raiment, your Dinner and your Flask,
depend on the turn up of a card. And so I very speedily abandoned this
line of life.

'Twas necessary, nevertheless, for something to be done to bring Grist
to the Mill. About this time it was a very common practice for Great
Noblemen--notably those who were in any way addicted to pleasure, and
ours was a mighty Gay Nobility thirty or forty years since--to entertain
Men of Honour, Daring, and Ability, cunning in the use of their Swords,
and exceedingly discreet in their conversations, to attend them upon
their private affairs, and render to them Services of a kind that
required Secrecy as well as Courage. One or two Duels in Hyde Park and
behind Montagu House, in which I had the honour to be concerned as
Second,--and in one of which I engaged the Second of my Patron's
Adversary, and succeeded, by two dexterous side slices, in Quincing his
face as neatly as a housewife would slice Fruit for a Devonshire Squab
Pie,--gained me the notice of some of the Highest Nobility, to whom I
was otherwise recommended by the easiness of my Manners, and the amenity
of my Language. The young Earl of Modesley did in particular affect me,
and I was of Service to his Lordship on many most momentous and delicate
Occasions. For upwards of Six Months I was sumptuously entertained in
his Lordship's Mansion in Red Lion Square;--a Kind of Hospitality,
indeed, which he was most profuse in the dispensation of:--there being
at the same time in the House a French Dancing-Master, an Italian
Singer, a Newmarket Horse-Jockey, and a Domestic Chaplain, that had been
unfrocked for too much fighting of Cocks and drinking of Cider with
clowns at his Vicarage; but to whom the Earl of Modesley was always a
fast friend. Unfortunate Young Nobleman! He died of a malignant Fever at
Avignon, just before attaining his Thirtieth Year! His intentions
towards me were of the most Bounteous Description; and he even, being
pleased to say that I was a good-looking Fellow enough, and come to an
Age when it behoved me to be settled in Life, proposed that I should
enter in the bonds of Wedlock with one Miss Jenny Lightfoot, that had
formerly been a Milliner in Liquorpond Street, but who, when his
Lordship introduced me to her, lived in most splendid Lodgings under the
Piazza, Covent Garden, and gave the handsomest Chocolate Parties to the
Young Nobilit