m every one has a pull,
hath in the end scarce feathers to keep his back warm."

During the _gull's_ progress through Primero and Gleek,[76] he wants
for no admirable advice and solemn warnings from two excellent friends;
the _gull-groper_, and at length, the _impostor_. The _gull-groper_, who
knows, "to half an acre," all his means, takes the _gull_ when out of
luck to a side-window, and in a whisper talks of "dice being made of
women's bones, which would cozen any man:" but he pours his gold on the
board; and a bond is rapturously signed for the next quarter-day. But
the _gull-groper_, by a variety of expedients, avoids having the bond
duly discharged; he contrives to get a judgment, and a serjeant with his
mace procures the forfeiture of the bond; the treble value. But the
"impostor" has none of the milkiness of the "_gull-groper_"--he looks
for no favour under heaven from any man; he is bluff with all the
Ordinarie; he spits at random; jingles his spurs into any man's cloak;
and his "humour" is, to be a devil of a dare-all. All fear him as the
tyrant they must obey. The tender _gull_ trembles, and admires this
roysterer's valour. At length the devil he feared becomes his champion;
and the poor _gull_, proud of his intimacy, hides himself under this
_eagle's_ wings.

The _impostor_ sits close by his elbow, takes a partnership in his game,
furnishes the stakes when out of luck, and in truth does not care how
fast the gull loses; for a twirl of his mustachio, a tip of his nose, or
a wink of his eye, drives all the losses of the gull into the profits of
the grand confederacy at the Ordinarie. And when the impostor has fought
the gull's quarrels many a time, at last he kicks up the table; and the
gull sinks himself into the class of the forlorn-hope; he lives at the
mercy of his late friends the gull-groper and the impostor, who send him
out to lure some tender bird in feather.

Such were the _hells_ of our ancestors, from which our worthies might
take a lesson; and the "warren" in which the Audleys were the
conie-catchers.

But to return to our Audley; this philosophical usurer never pressed
hard for his debts; like the fowler, he never shook his nets lest he
might startle, satisfied to have them, without appearing to hold them.
With great fondness he compared his "bonds to infants, which battle best
by sleeping." To battle is to be nourished, a term still retained at the
University of Oxford. His familiar companion