His lady, who had often said of him that Joey was the handsomest and
genteelest footman in the kingdom, but that it was pity he wanted
spirit, began now to find that fault no longer; on the contrary, she was
frequently heard to cry out, "Ay, there is some life in this fellow."
She plainly saw the effects which the town air hath on the soberest
constitutions. She would now walk out with him into Hyde Park in a
morning, and when tired, which happened almost every minute, would lean
on his arm, and converse with him in great familiarity. Whenever she
stept out of her coach, she would take him by the hand, and sometimes,
for fear of stumbling, press it very hard; she admitted him to deliver
messages at her bedside in a morning, leered at him at table, and
indulged him in all those innocent freedoms which women of figure may
permit without the least sully of their virtue.

But though their virtue remains unsullied, yet now and then some small
arrows will glance on the shadow of it, their reputation; and so it fell
out to Lady Booby, who happened to be walking arm-in-arm with Joey one
morning in Hyde Park, when Lady Tittle and Lady Tattle came accidentally
by in their coach. "Bless me," says Lady Tittle, "can I believe my eyes?
Is that Lady Booby?"--"Surely," says Tattle. "But what makes you
surprized?"--"Why, is not that her footman?" replied Tittle. At which
Tattle laughed, and cried, "An old business, I assure you: is it
possible you should not have heard it? The whole town hath known it this
half-year." The consequence of this interview was a whisper through a
hundred visits, which were separately performed by the two ladies[A] the
same afternoon, and might have had a mischievous effect, had it not been
stopt by two fresh reputations which were published the day afterwards,
and engrossed the whole talk of the town.

[A] It may seem an absurdity that Tattle should visit, as she actually