al agreement" with Wilks,
the actor, who suffered much from his playfellow's eccentricities,
that "whenever he was guilty of corresponding with the gods he should
receive on his back three smart strokes of Bob Wilks's cane." But even
this penalty, it would seem, Wilks was too good-natured to enforce. On
one occasion, however, as Davies relates, Pinkethman so persisted in
his gagging as to incur the displeasure of the audience. The comedy
was Farquhar's "Recruiting Officer;" Wilks played Captain Plume, and
Pinkethman one of the recruits. The captain enlisting him inquired his
name. Instead of giving the proper answer, Pinkethman replied: "Why,
don't you know my name, Bob? I thought every fool knew that." Wilks
angrily whispered to him the name of the recruit, Thomas Appleton.
"Thomas Appleton?" he cried aloud. "No, no, my name's Will
Pinkethman!" Then, addressing himself to the gallery, he said: "Hark
ye, friends; you know my name up there, don't you?" "Yes, Master
Pinkey," was the answer, "we know your name well enough." The house
was now in an uproar. At first the audience enjoyed the folly of
Pinkethman, and the distressed air of Wilks; but soon the joke grew
tiresome, and hisses became distinctly audible. By assuming as
melancholy an expression as he could, and exclaiming with a strong
nasal twang: "Odds, I fear I'm wrong," Pinkethman was enabled to
restore the good-humour of his patrons. It would seem that on other
occasions he was compelled to make some similar apology for his
misdemeanours. "I have often thought," Cibber writes, "that a good
deal of the favour he met with was owing to this seeming humble way of
waiving all pretences to merit, but what the town would please to
allow him." A satiric poem, called "The Players," published in 1733,
contains the following reference to Pinkethman:

Quit not your theme to win the gaping rout,
Nor aim at Pinkey's leer with "S'death, I'm out!"
An arch dull rogue, who lets the business cool,
To show how nicely he can play the fool,
Who with buffoonery his dulness clokes,
Deserves a cat-o'-nine-tails for his jokes.

At this time, Pinkethman had been dead some years, and it is explained
in a note, that no "invidious reflection upon his memory" was
intended, but merely a caution to others, who, less gifted, should
presume to imitate conduct which had not escaped censure even in his
case. With all his irregularities, Pinkethman was accounted a
service