would not?--That he did as every young fellow would do.

Very true! said my mother's puritan--but I hear he is in treaty with a
fine lady--

So he was, Mr. Belton said--The devil fetch her! [vile brute!] for she
engrossed all his time--but that the lady's family ought to be--
something--[Mr. Hickman desired to be excused repeating what--though he
had repeated what was worse] and might dearly repent their usage of a man
of his family and merit.

Perhaps they may think him too wild, cries Hickman: and theirs is, I
hear, a very sober family--

SOBER! said one of them: A good honest word, Dick!--Where the devil has
it lain all this time?--D-- me if I have heard of it in this sense ever
since I was at college! and then, said he, we bandied it about among
twenty of us as an obsolete.

These, my dear, are Mr. Lovelace's companions: you'll be pleased to take
notice of that!

Mr. Hickman said, this put him out of countenance.

I stared at him, and with such a meaning in my eyes, as he knew how to
take; and so was out of countenance again.

Don't you remember, my dear, who it was that told a young gentleman
designed for the gown, who owned that he was apt to be too easily put out
of countenance when he came into free company, 'That it was a bad sign;