TRUCE with Politics, I beseech you, Gentlemen.——I gad! ’tis unconscionable to lecture a Man thus at his own House.
Broadbottom. By no means, Mr. Overall; I look upon the Freedom with which my worthy Neighbours here treat me, as an Instance of their Friendship and Regard.
Roseband. There spoke the Christian and Man of sound Understanding——
Over. Pshaw! P—x! What have we Fox-hunters to do with sound Understandings?——Give me a sound Bottom, Parson, and you are welcome to keep your Christianity and sound Understanding for your next Christmas Conversation. Ha, ha!
Blunt. Right, Mr. Overall; I say a sound Bottom too.
Over. Come, Gentlemen, let the Toast go round.——To all sound Bottoms—No Affront, I hope, to any one here.——What say’st thou, honest Blunt?
Blunt. I say, the Vicar need not make those d——d wry Faces at Toasting the best Thing in Nature.——You have been paying Homage for twenty Years to a Broadbottom, and now winch at the naming a Sound one.——Ah! Mr. Roseband; the Jesuit sticks to the Cloth in England as at Rome.
Smoothwell. Why so, Mr. Blunt? The Words Sound Bottom convey an Idea which Mr. Roseband might wish not to conceive.
Blunt. And pray, good Mr. Smoothwell, what is there of indecent or unseemly in the Idea conceived at the mention of those two harmless Words, Sound and Bottom?
Over. Wou’d a reverend Divine wish to be put in Mind of the Days of his Youth? Ha, ha!—— Mr. Blunt, had you been bred at Oxford, as the Doctor was, you wou’d have known that all are not Sound that grace Magdalen Walks on a Summer’s Evening. Ha, ha!