“Oh, spare me, Parson! Thou shalt go cully my neighbour here with thy plaguey texts. They’ll fit him like a skin glove.”
“What neighbour, sir?”
“Him that sold his brush to Charlie Greville’s mistress, a grim little toad—Romney by name—that my Lord Thurlow pits against Reynolds for something better than a whore’s sign-painter.”
“Well, sir, doubtless the man will learn to read himself in his work, and to profit by the lesson.”
“Master Ned Parson, when do you go? It cannot be too soon for me.”
“I may start at any moment.”
“Heaven be praised! And whither?”
“Possibly by way of the Low Countries at the outset. Will your lordship give me some letters of introduction?”
“What! Your independence doesn’t strake at that?”
“You greatly misapprehend me, sir. I go to seek mental, not bodily discipline; chastisement, as a forcing medium, ceases of its effect with the second age of reason.”