died as became his station; for he spent his money like a gentleman,
he loved women like a gentleman, he would fight like a gentleman, he
gambled and got drunk like a gentleman. What did he want else?
Only a matter of six descents, a little money, and an estate, to
render him the equal of St. John or Harley. "Ah, those were merry
days!" would Mr. Brock say,--for he loved, in a good old age, to
recount the story of his London fashionable campaign;--"and when I
think how near I was to become a great man, and to die perhaps a
general, I can't but marvel at the wicked obstinacy of my ill-luck."

"I will tell you what I did, my dear: I had lodgings in Piccadilly,
as if I were a lord; I had two large periwigs, and three suits of
laced clothes; I kept a little black dressed out like a Turk; I
walked daily in the Mall; I dined at the politest ordinary in Covent
Garden; I frequented the best of coffee-houses, and knew all the
pretty fellows of the town; I cracked a bottle with Mr. Addison, and
lent many a piece to Dick Steele (a sad debauched rogue, my dear);
and, above all, I'll tell you what I did--the noblest stroke that
sure ever a gentleman performed in my situation.

"One day, going into 'Will's,' I saw a crowd of gentlemen gathered
together, and heard one of them say, 'Captain Wood! I don't know the
man; but there was a Captain Wood in Southwell's regiment.' Egad, it
was my Lord Peterborough himself who was talking about me. So,
putting off my hat, I made a most gracious conge to my Lord, and
said I knew HIM, and rode behind him at Barcelona on our entry into
that town.

"'No doubt you did, Captain Wood,' says my Lord, taking my hand;
'and no doubt you know me: for many more know Tom Fool, than Tom