cocks, and smoke pipes with Jack and Tom, the grooms in the stables. Mrs.
Newcome found me, I recollect, with one of those books; and thinking it
might be by Mrs. Hannah More, or some of that sort, for it was a
grave-looking volume: and though I wouldn't lie about that or anything
else--never did, sir; never, before heaven, have I told more than three
lies in my life--I kept my own counsel; I say, she took it herself to
read one evening; and read on gravely--for she had no more idea of a joke
than I have of Hebrew--until she came to the part about Lady B---- and
Joseph Andrews; and then she shut the book, sir; and you should have seen
the look she gave me! I own I burst out a-laughing, for I was a wild
young rebel, sir. But she was in the right, sir, and I was in the wrong.
A book, sir, that tells the story of a parcel of servants, of a pack of
footmen and ladies'-maids fuddling in alehouses! Do you suppose I want to
know what my kitmutgars and cousomahs are doing? I am as little proud as
any man in the world: but there must be distinction, sir; and as it is my
lot and Clive's lot to be a gentleman, I won't sit in the kitchen and
boose in the servants'-hall. As for that Tom Jones--that fellow that
sells himself, sir--by heavens, my blood boils when I think of him! I
wouldn't sit down in the same room with such a fellow, sir. If he came in
at that door, I would say, 'How dare you, you hireling ruffian, to sully
with your presence an apartment where my young friend and I are
conversing together? where two gentlemen, I say, are taking their wine
after dinner? How dare you, you degraded villain?' I don't mean you, sir.
I--I--I beg your pardon."

The Colonel was striding about the room in his loose garments, puffing
his cigar fiercely anon, and then waving his yellow bandana; and it was
by the arrival of Larkins, my clerk, that his apostrophe to Tom Jones was
interrupted; he, Larkins, taking care not to show his amazement, having
been schooled not to show or feel surprise at anything he might see or