But who is Capt.  Mennell? methinks thou askest:  I never heard of such a man as Captain Mennell.

Very likely.  But knowest thou not young Newcomb, honest Doleman’s newphew?

O-ho!  Is it he?

It is.  And I have changed his name by virtue of my own single authority.  Knowest thou not, that I am a great name-father?  Preferment I bestow, both military and civil.  I give estates, and take them away at my pleasure.  Quality too I create.  And by a still more valuable prerogative, I degrade by virtue of my own imperial will, without any other act of forfeiture than my own convenience.  What a poor thing is a monarch to me!

But Mennell, now he has seen this angel of a woman, has qualms; that’s the devil!—­I shall have enough to do to keep him right.  But it is the less wonder, that he should stagger, when a few hours’ conversation with the same lady could make four much more hardened varlets find hearts—­ only, that I am confident, that I shall at least reward her virtue, if her virtue overcome me, or I should find it impossible to persevere—­for at times I have confounded qualms myself.  But say not a word of them to the confraternity:  nor laugh at me for them thyself.

In another letter, dated Monday night, he writes as follows: 

This perverse lady keeps me at such a distance, that I am sure something is going on between her and Miss Howe, notwithstanding the prohibition from Mrs. Howe to both:  and as I have thought it some degree of merit in myself to punish others for their transgressions, I am of opinion that both these girls are punishable for their breach of parental injunctions.  And as to their letter-carrier, I have been inquiring into his way of living; and finding him to be a common poacher, a deer-stealer, and warren-robber, who, under pretence of haggling, deals with a set of customers who constantly take all he brings, whether fish, fowl, or venison, I hold myself justified (since Wilson’s conveyance must at present be sacred) to have him stripped and robbed, and what money he has about him given to the poor; since, if I take not money as well as letters, I shall be suspected.

To serve one’s self, and punish a villain at the same time, is serving public and private.  The law was not made for such a man as me.  And I must come at correspondences so disobediently carried on.

But, on second thoughts, if I could find out that the dear creature carried any of her letters in her pockets, I can get her to a play or to a concert, and she may have the misfortune to lose her pockets.

But how shall I find this out; since her Dorcas knows no more of her dressing and undressing than her Lovelace?  For she is dressed for the day before she appears even to her servant.  Vilely suspicious!  Upon my soul, Jack, a suspicious temper is a punishable temper.  If a woman suspects a rogue in an honest man, is it not enough to make the honest man who knows it a rogue?