(or housemaid as the vulgar call it) of an eminent pawnbroker.  The lightning, therefore, which should have flashed from the jewels, flashed from her eyes, and thunder immediately followed from her voice.  She be-knaved, be-rascalled, be-rogued the unhappy hero, who stood silent, confounded with astonishment, but more with shame and indignation, at being thus outwitted and overreached.  At length he recovered his spirits, and, throwing down the casket in a rage, he snatched the key from the table, and, without making any answer to the ladies, who both very plentifully opened upon him, and without taking any leave of them, he flew out at the door, and repaired with the utmost expedition to the count’s habitation.

CHAPTER FOUR

In which wild, after many fruitless endeavours to discover his
friend, moralises on his misfortune in A speech, which may be of
use (if rightly understood) to some other considerable speech-
makers.

Not the highest-fed footman of the highest-bred woman of quality knocks with more impetuosity than Wild did at the count’s door, which was immediately opened by a well-drest liveryman, who answered that his master was not at home.  Wild, not satisfied with this, searched the house, but to no purpose; he then ransacked all the gaming-houses in town, but found no count:  indeed, that gentleman had taken leave of his house the same instant Mr. Wild had turned his back, and, equipping himself with boots and a post-horse, without taking with him either servant, clothes, or any necessaries for the journey of a great man, made such mighty expedition that he was now upwards of twenty miles on his way to Dover.

Wild, finding his search ineffectual, resolved to give it over for that night; he then retired to his seat of contemplation, a night-cellar, where, without a single farthing in his pocket, he called for a sneaker of punch, and, placing himself on a bench by himself, he softly vented the following soliloquy:—­

“How vain is human greatness!  What avail superior abilities, and a noble defiance of those narrow rules and bounds which confine the vulgar, when his best-concerted schemes are liable to be defeated!  How unhappy is the state of priggism!  How impossible for human prudence to foresee and guard against every circumvention!  It is even as a game of chess, where, while the rook, or knight, or bishop, is busied forecasting some great enterprize, a worthless pawn exposes and disconcerts his scheme.  Better had it been for me to have observed the simple laws of friendship and morality than thus to ruin my friend for the benefit of others.  I might have commanded his purse to any degree of moderation: