MR. WILD'S FIRST ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD. HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH
COUNT LA RUSE.

An accident soon happened after his arrival in town which almost
saved the father his whole labour on this head, and provided
master Wild a better tutor than any after-care or expense could
have furnished him with. The old gentleman, it seems, was a
FOLLOWER of the fortunes of Mr. Snap, son of Mr. Geoffry Snap,
whom we have before mentioned to have enjoyed a reputable office
under the Sheriff of London and Middlesex, the daughter of which
Geoffry had intermarried with the Wilds. Mr. Snap the younger,
being thereto well warranted, had laid violent hands on, or, as
the vulgar express it, arrested one count La Ruse, a man of
considerable figure in those days, and had confined him to his own
house till he could find two seconds who would in a formal manner
give their words that the count should, at a certain day and place
appointed, answer all that one Thomas Thimble, a taylor, had to
say to him; which Thomas Thimble, it seems, alleged that the count
had, according to the law of the realm, made over his body to him
as a security for some suits of cloaths to him delivered by the
said Thomas Thimble. Now as the count, though perfectly a man of
honour, could not immediately find these seconds, he was obliged
for some time to reside at Mr. Snap's house: for it seems the law
of the land is, that whoever owes another 10 pounds, or indeed 2
pounds, may be, on the oath of that person, immediately taken up
and carried away from his own house and family, and kept abroad
till he is made to owe, 50 pounds, whether he will or no; for
which he is perhaps afterwards obliged to lie in gaol; and all
these without any trial had, or any other evidence of the debt
than the above said oath, which if untrue, as it often happens,