relief from their fatigue. This my master quickly perceived, and, being
extremely provoked, he spoke to me with a degree of harshness and
insolence which, as I bore it with temper, prepossessed the young
company in my favour. He concluded his lecture with the old sentence:
'Gentlemen, I shall no longer detain you from what I am sure is much
better worthy of your attention than any thing I can offer, viz. Mr.
Jervas's puppet-show.' This was an unlucky speech on the present
occasion, for it happened that every body, after having seen what he
called my puppet-show, was precisely of this opinion. My master grew
more and more impatient, and wanted to hurry me away, but one spirited
young man most warmly took me and my tin-mine under his protection: I
stood my ground, insisting upon my right to finish my exhibition, as my
master had been allowed full time to finish his. The young gentleman who
supported me was as well pleased by my present firmness as he had been
by my former patience. At parting he made a handsome collection for me,
which I refused to accept, taking only the regular price. 'Well,' said
he, 'you shall be no loser by this. You are going to town; my father is
in London; here is his direction. I'll mention you to him the next time
I write home, and you'll not be the worse for that.'

"As soon as we got to London, I went according to my direction. The
young gentleman had been more punctual in writing home than young
gentlemen sometimes are. I was appointed to come with my models the
next evening, when a number of young people were collected, beside the
children of the family. The young spectators gathered round me at
one end of a large saloon, asking me innumerable questions after the
exhibition was over; whilst the master of the house, who was an East
India director, was walking up and down the room, conversing with
a gentleman in an officer's uniform. They were, as I afterwards
understood, talking about the casting of some guns at Woolwich for the