hawk from a hand-saw." {16} He then resumed his jocular vein, and
began to enlarge upon his experiences in life, and especially some
very scandalous love adventures.



CHAPTER XL.



I bore all this patiently, to give him no handle for accusing me of
bigotry or intolerance, and in the hope that after the fever of
erotic buffoonery and folly had subsided, he might have some lucid
intervals, and listen to common sense. Meantime I gave him
expressly to understand that I disapproved of his want of respect
towards women, his free and profane expressions, and pitied those
unhappy ones, who, he informed me, had been his victims.

He pretended to care little about my disapprobation, and repeated:
"spite of your fine strictures upon immorality, I know well you are
amused with the account of my adventures. All men are as fond of
pleasure as I am, but they have not the frankness to talk of it
without cloaking it from the eyes of the world; I will go on till
you are quite enchanted, and confess yourself compelled in VERY
CONSCIENCE to applaud me." So he went on from week to week, I
bearing with him, partly out of curiosity and partly in the
expectation he would fall upon some better topic; and I can fairly
say that this species of tolerance, did me no little harm. I began
to lose my respect for pure and noble truths, my thoughts became
confused, and my mind disturbed. To converse with men of degraded