ess, they heard our hero to an end, with great patience. Then
the wife, who was the common mouth upon all such occasions, contracting
her features into a very formal disposition, "I'll assure you," said she,
"Doctor Fathom, my husband and I have been in a very great terrification
and numplush, to hear such bad things of a person, whom, as one may say,
we thought a worthy gentleman, and were ready to serve at all times, by
day and by night, as the saying is. And besides, for all that, you know,
and God knows, as we are dustrious people, and work hard for what we get,
and we have served gentlemen to our own harm, whereby my husband was last
Tuesday served with a siserary, being that he was bound for an officer
that ran away. And I said to my husband, Timothy, says I, 'tis a very
hard thing for one to ruin one's self for stranger people--There's Doctor
Fathom, says I, his account comes to nine-and-forty pounds seven
shillings and fourpence halfpenny; and you know, doctor, that was before
your last bill began. But, howsomever, little did I think, as how a
gentleman of your learning would go to deceive a poor gentlewoman, when
you had another wife alive."

In vain did our adventurer endeavour to vindicate himself from this
aspersion; the good woman, like a great many modern disputants, proceeded
with her declamation, without seeming to hear what was said on the other
side of the question; and the husband was altogether neutral. At length,
Ferdinand, finding all his protestations ineffectual, "Well," said he,
"though you are resolved, I see, to discredit all that I can say in
opposition to that scandalous slander, of which I can easily acquit
myself in a court of justice, surely you will not refuse to grant me a
certificate, signifying that you were present at the ceremony of my
marriage with this unhappy woman." "You shall excuse us," replied the
female orator; "people cannot be too wary in signing their names in this
wicked world; many a one has been brought to ruination by signing his
name, and my husband shall not, with my goodwill, draw himself into such
a primmineery."

Fathom, alarmed at this refusal, earnestly argued against the inhumanity
and injustice of it, appealing to their own consciences for the
reasonableness of his proposal; but, from the evasive answers of the
wife, he had reason to believe, that, long before the time of trial, they
would take care to have forgotten the whole transaction.

Though he