Neighbours mine, this broken head deserves a plaister; had poor Jack
been tender of his noddle, you would have seen the Pope and the
French King long before this time of day among your wives and your
warehouses. Dear Christians, the Great Moghul was come as far as
Whitechapel, and you may thank these poor sides that he hath not--
God bless us--already swallowed up man, woman, and child."

It was highly worth observing the singular effects of that aversion
or antipathy which Jack and his brother Peter seemed, even to
affectation, to bear towards each other. Peter had lately done some
rogueries that forced him to abscond, and he seldom ventured to stir
out before night for fear of bailiffs. Their lodgings were at the
two most distant parts of the town from each other, and whenever
their occasions or humours called them abroad, they would make
choice of the oddest, unlikely times, and most uncouth rounds that
they could invent, that they might be sure to avoid one another.
Yet, after all this, it was their perpetual fortune to meet, the
reason of which is easy enough to apprehend, for the frenzy and the
spleen of both having the same foundation, we may look upon them as
two pair of compasses equally extended, and the fixed foot of each
remaining in the same centre, which, though moving contrary ways at
first, will be sure to encounter somewhere or other in the
circumference. Besides, it was among the great misfortunes of Jack
to bear a huge personal resemblance with his brother Peter. Their
humour and dispositions were not only the same, but there was a
close analogy in their shape, their size, and their mien; insomuch
as nothing was more frequent than for a bailiff to seize Jack by the
shoulders and cry, "Mr. Peter, you are the king's prisoner;" or, at
other times, for one of Peter's nearest friends to accost Jack with
open arms: "Dear Peter, I am glad to see thee; pray send me one of