Chapter XCVI: Letter XCIV: To Mr. M

August 1, 1779.
Coat and Badge.

BRAVO! So you think you have given me the retort-courteous--I admit it.--Go to! you are seedy, you are sly--true son, in the right direct line, of old Gastpherious Sly.--Your letter to S--n makes ample amends for your impudence in presuming to mount my hobby:--yes, I do affirm it to be a good, yea, and a friendly letter.--The leading-string thought is new, and almost poetic;--I watched him while he read it;--he read it twice.--I judge he felt the force of your argumentation.--May he avail himself of your friendly hints! and may you have the heart-felt satisfaction of finding him a wiser being than heretofore! How doth George’s mouth?--I honour you for your humane feelings--and much more for your brotherly affection;--but do not Namby-Pamby with the manly exertions of benevolence:--what I mean is--ah me! poor George--to be sure ’tis well its no worse;--but the loss of a tooth and a scar are so disfiguring!--Pooh, simpleton, if his heart is right, and God blesses him with health--his exterior will ever be pleasing, in spight of the gap in his gums, or scar above his chin. G---- is likely--the rogue has a pleasing cherry phiz: neither so old nor so mouldy as some folks, not having been rocked in the cradle of flattery--he has consequently more modesty than his elders.--I could easily fill the sheet in contrasting the merits of the two lads;--but then it would (I plainly foresee) turn out so much to the advantage of Prince Jacky--that in mere charity I forbear--and shall conclude with wishing both your heads to agree, as well in good health, as in the many good qualities which I have not time to enumerate.

Mrs. Sancho is pretty well--the girls and Billy well,--I am sometimes better--sometimes so, so.--I should have answered you sooner; but yesterday was obliged to write all day--though fast asleep the whole time:--perhaps you will retort--that it is the case with me at this present writing. False and scandalous! I declare I was never more awake.--Remember me to Mr. S----, the ladies, and to thyself, if thou knowest him.

Farewell. Thine, &c. &c. &c.

I. SANCHO.