in the crude language of the crookbacked Twickenham bard. If you were not so drunk I would give it you in Virgil's eleganter tongue."
"I don't know what the female's like in her carriage," says the fellow, regarding us both with a very natural bewilderment, "for she's not come in no carriage, do you see. She's come afoot. But she's a shortish wench, with a pert tongue, and she's a-crying like fun."
Prosaic as this description was, and sensibly differing as it did from the one I had furnished, I was sure that the female was no other than Cynthia. That there could be other shortish wenches in the world with pert tongues, who were capable of crying like fun, never entered my head. It may have been that I had so continually brooded on her fate, or the guilt of my conscience was so keen as to lead me to this conclusion on such slender grounds. Relieved as I was, I yet had some twinges of contrition. Despite my heavy-witted state I was fully alive to it, and mightily uneasy as to the figure I must make in her eyes.
"A pretty kettle of fish," says I, "that I should be as drunk——"
"As a lord," suggested Mr. Fielding.
"As drunk as a lord on our wedding-day. I pray you have pity on my state, sir, and help me out as much as you can."
"My dear fellow," says Mr. Fielding, "this is no sort of talk. It is unworthy of you. Why, nothing could have been better contrived, sir. Can anything be more commendable than that a man should begin as he means to go on. One cannot begin too soon to bring up one's wife properly."
"Poor little toad," says I. "When she sees me like this I am sure she will weep more bitterly."
"Hath she never seen you drunk before?" says Fielding.
"Never," says I.