upon the anguish she must feel at parting with me, and the
incessant sorrows to which her tender bosom would be exposed during
my absence, without being pierced with the deepest affliction! As my
imagination was daily and nightly upon the rack to invent some method
of mitigating this cruel stroke, or at least of acquitting my love and
honour in the opinion of this gentle creature, I at length stumbled upon
an expedient, with which the reader will be made acquainted in due
time; and, in consequence of my determination, became less uneasy and
disturbed.

My business being finished, and the ship ready to sail, I resolved to
make my last appearance among my acquaintance at the other end of the
town, where I had not been since my imprisonment; and as I had, by the
advice of my uncle, taken off some very rich clothes for sale, I put
on the gayest suit in my possession, and went in a chair to the
coffee-house I used to frequent, where I found my friend Banter so
confounded at the magnificence of my dress, that, when I made up to him,
he gazed at me with a look of astonishment, without being able, for
some minutes, to open his lips; then pulling me aside by the sleeve, and
fixing his eyes on mine, accosted me thus: "Random, where the devil have
you been! eh? What is the meaning of all this finery? Oho! I understand
you. You are just arrived from the country! what, the roads are good,
eh? Well, Random, you are a bold fellow, and a lucky fellow! but take
care, the pitcher goes often to the well, but is broke at last." So
saying, he pointed to his collar; by which gesture, and the broken
hints he had ejaculated, I found he suspected me of having robbed on
the highway; and I laughed very heartily at his supposition. Without
explaining myself any further, I told him he was mistaken in his
conjecture; that I had been for some time past with the relation of whom
he had frequently heard me speak; and that, as I should set out next
day upon my travels, I had come to take my leave of my friends, and to
receive of him the money he had borrowed from me, which, now that I
was going abroad, I should certainly have occasion for. He was a little
disconcerted at this demand; but, recollecting himself in a moment,
swore in an affected passion, that I had used him extremely ill, and he
would never forgive me for having, by this short warning, put it out of
his power to free himself of an obligation he could no longer bear. I
could not help smilin