p gentlewoman took umbrage at this last expression, which she
considered as a double reproach, and repeated the words, "Children of
vanity!" with an emphasis of resentment. "I believe, if the truth were
known," said she, "there's more vanity than midriff in that great belly
of yours, for all your pretending to humility and religion. Sirrah! my
corporation is made up of good, wholesome, English fat; but you are
puffed up with the wind of vanity and delusion; and when it begins to
gripe your entrails, you pretend to have a motion, and then get up and
preach nonsense. Yet you'll take it upon you to call your betters
children. Marry come up, Mr. Goosecap, I have got children that are as
good men as you, or any hypocritical trembler in England."

A person who sat opposite to the quaker, hearing this remonstrance, which
seemed pregnant with contention, interposed in the conversation with a
conscious leer, and begged there might be no rupture between the spirit
and the flesh. By this remonstrance he relieved Obadiah from the satire
of this female orator, and brought the whole vengeance of her elocution
upon his own head. "Flesh!" cried she, with all the ferocity of an
enraged Thalestris; "none of your names, Mr. Yellowchaps. What! I
warrant you have an antipathy to flesh, because you yourself are nothing
but skin and bone. I suppose you are some poor starved journeyman tailor
come from France, where you have been learning to cabbage, and have not
seen a good meal of victuals these seven years. You have been living
upon rye-bread and soup-maigre, and now you come over like a walking
atomy with a rat's tail at your wig, and a tinsey jacket. And so,
forsooth, you set up for a gentleman, and pretend to find fault with a
sirloin of roast beef."

The gentleman heard this address with admirable patience, and when she
had rung out her alarm, very coolly replied, "Anything but your stinking
fish madam. Since when, I pray, have you travelled in stage-coaches, and
left off your old profession of crying oysters in winter, and rotten
mackerel in June? You was then known by the name of Kate Brawn, and in
good repute among the ale-houses in Thames Street, till that unlucky
amour with the master of a corn-vessel, in which he was unfortunately
detected by his own spouse; but you seem to have risen by that fall; and
I wish you joy of your present plight. Though, considering your
education on Bear Quay, you can give but a sorry acco