up and kick the beam; so it happened here that the weight of
Martin's arguments exalted Jack's levity, and made him fly out and
spurn against his brother's moderation. In short, Martin's patience
put Jack in a rage; but that which most afflicted him was to observe
his brother's coat so well reduced into the state of innocence,
while his own was either wholly rent to his shirt, or those places
which had escaped his cruel clutches were still in Peter's livery.
So that he looked like a drunken beau half rifled by bullies, or
like a fresh tenant of Newgate when he has refused the payment of
garnish, or like a discovered shoplifter left to the mercy of
Exchange-women {111a}, or like a bawd in her old velvet petticoat
resigned into the secular hands of the mobile {111b}. Like any or
like all of these, a medley of rags, and lace, and fringes,
unfortunate Jack did now appear; he would have been extremely glad
to see his coat in the condition of Martin's, but infinitely gladder
to find that of Martin in the same predicament with his. However,
since neither of these was likely to come to pass, he thought fit to
lend the whole business another turn, and to dress up necessity into
a virtue. Therefore, after as many of the fox's arguments as he
could muster up for bringing Martin to reason, as he called it, or
as he meant it, into his own ragged, bobtailed condition, and
observing he said all to little purpose, what alas! was left for the
forlorn Jack to do, but, after a million of scurrilities against his
brother, to run mad with spleen, and spite, and contradiction. To
be short, here began a mortal breach between these two. Jack went
immediately to new lodgings, and in a few days it was for certain
reported that he had run out of his wits. In a short time after he
appeared abroad, and confirmed the report by falling into the oddest
whimsies that ever a sick brain conceived.