neither so honourable nor so ingenious.

Wild now made a considerable figure, and passed for a gentleman of
great fortune in the funds. Women of quality treated him with
great familiarity, young ladies began to spread their charms for
him, when an accident happened that put a stop to his continuance
in a way of life too insipid and inactive to afford employment for
those great talents which were designed to make a much more
considerable figure in the world than attends the character of a
beau or a pretty gentleman.




CHAPTER SEVEN

MASTER WILD SETS OUT ON HIS TRAVELS, AND RETURNS HOME AGAIN. A
VERY SHORT CHAPTER, CONTAINING INFINITELY MORE TIME AND LESS
MATTER THAN ANY OTHER IN THE WHOLE STORY.


We are sorry we cannot indulge our reader's curiosity with a full
and perfect account of this accident; but as there are such
various accounts, one of which only can be true, and possibly and
indeed probably none; instead of following the general method of
historians, who in such cases set down the various reports, and
leave to your own conjecture which you will chuse, we shall pass
them all over.

Certain it is that, whatever this accident was, it determined our