, tho' a Fellow of good Sense, is every Day doing and saying an hundred Things which he afterwards confesses, with a well-bred Frankness, were somewhat
mal a propos
, and undesigned.
I chanced the other Day to go into a Coffee-house, where
Will
, was standing in the midst of several Auditors whom he had gathered round him, and was giving them an Account of the Person and Character of
Moll Hinton
. My Appearance before him just put him in mind of me, without making him reflect that I was actually present. So that keeping his Eyes full upon me, to the great Surprize of his Audience, he broke off his first Harangue, and proceeded thus:
'Why now there's my Friend (mentioning me by my Name) he is a Fellow that thinks a great deal, but never opens his Mouth; I warrant you he is now thrusting his short Face into some Coffee-house about 'Change. I was his Bail in the time of the Popish-Plot, when he was taken up for a Jesuit.'
If he had looked on me a little longer, he had certainly described me so particularly, without ever considering what led him into it, that the whole Company must necessarily have found me out; for which Reason, remembering the old Proverb,