coldness in all my acquaintance; none of them spoke to me first, and
very few returned me even the civility of a bow. The company I used to
dine with left me out, and within a week I found myself in as much
solitude at St James's as if I had been in a desart. An honest elderly
man, with a great hat and long sword, at last told me he had a
compassion for my youth, and therefore advised me to show the world I
was not such a rascal as they thought me to be. I did not at first
understand him; but he explained himself, and ended with telling me, if
I would write a challenge to the captain, he would, out of pure charity,
go to him with it. "A very charitable person, truly!" cried Adams. I
desired till the next day, continued the gentleman, to consider on it,
and, retiring to my lodgings, I weighed the consequences on both sides
as fairly as I could. On the one, I saw the risk of this alternative,
either losing my own life, or having on my hands the blood of a man with
whom I was not in the least angry. I soon determined that the good which
appeared on the other was not worth this hazard. I therefore resolved to
quit the scene, and presently retired to the Temple, where I took
chambers. Here I soon got a fresh set of acquaintance, who knew nothing
of what had happened to me. Indeed, they were not greatly to my
approbation; for the beaus of the Temple are only the shadows of the
others. They are the affectation of affectation. The vanity of these is
still more ridiculous, if possible, than of the others. Here I met with
smart fellows who drank with lords they did not know, and intrigued with
women they never saw. Covent Garden was now the farthest stretch of my
ambition; where I shone forth in the balconies at the playhouses,
visited whores, made love to orange-wenches, and damned plays. This
career was soon put a stop to by my surgeon, who convinced me of the
necessity of confining myself to my room for a month. At the end of
which, having had leisure to reflect, I resolved to quit all farther
conversation with beaus and smarts of every kind, and to avoid, if