Med. I never speak ill of my friends, Sir Christopher.
Sir Chr. Pshaw!
Inkle. Then let me speak: hear me defend a conduct——
Sir Chr. Defend! Zounds! plead guilty at once—it's the only hope left of obtaining mercy.
Inkle. Suppose, old gentleman, you had a son?
Sir Chr. 'Sblood! then I'd make him an honest fellow; and teach him, that the feeling heart never knows greater pride than when it's employed in giving succour to the unfortunate. I'd teach him to be his father's own son to a hair.
Inkle. Even so my father tutored me: from my infancy, bending my tender mind, like a young sapling, to his will—Interest was the grand prop round which he twined my pliant green affections: taught me in childhood to repeat old sayings—all tending to his own fixed principles, and the first sentence that I ever lisped, was—Charity begins at home.
Sir Chr. I shall never like a proverb again, as long as I live.
Inkle. As I grew up, he'd prove—and by example—were I in want, I might e'en starve, for what the world cared for their neighbours; why then should I care for the world? Men now lived for themselves. These were his doctrines: then, sir, what would you say, should I, in spite of habit, precept, education, fly in my father's face, and spurn his councils?