When I had indulged the loquacity of an old man for some time in such loose hints, I took my leave of Mr. Mills, and was told, Mr. Elliot[20] of St. James's Coffee-house would speak with me. His business was to desire I would, as I am an astrologer, let him know beforehand who were to have the benefit tickets in the ensuing lottery; which knowledge he was of opinion he could turn to great account, as he was concerned in news.
I granted his request, upon an oath of secrecy, that he would only make his own use of it, and not let it be publicly known till after they were drawn. I had not done speaking, when he produced to me a plan which he had formed of keeping books, with the names of all such adventurers, and the numbers of their tickets, as should come to him, in order to give an hourly account[21] of what tickets shall come up during the whole time of the lottery, the drawing of which is to begin on Wednesday next. I liked his method of disguising the secret I had told him, and pronounced him a thriving man who could so well watch the motion of things, and profit by a prevailing humour and impatience so aptly, as to make his honest industry agreeable to his customers, as it is to be the messenger of their good fortune.
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From the Trumpet in Sheer Lane, July 20.
Ordered, that for the improvement of the pleasures of society, a member of this house, one of the most wakeful of the soporific assembly beyond Smithfield Bars, and one of the order of story-tellers in Holborn, may meet and exchange stale matter, and report the same to their principals.
N.B.—No man is to tell above one story in the same evening; but has liberty to tell the same the night following.
Mr. Bickerstaff desires his love correspondents to vary the names they shall assume in their future letters, for that he is overstocked with Philanders.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] John Mills, the elder, who died in 1736. Cibber says that Mills owed his advancement to Wilks, to whose friendship his qualities as an "honest, quiet, careful man, of as few faults as excellences, commended him." Mills' salary (see table printed in vol. ii. p. 164) was the same as Betterton's—£4 a week, and £1 for his wife.
[20] On November 19, 1710, Swift and Steele met at the St. James's Coffee-house. "This evening," says Swift, "I christened our coffee-man Elliot's child, where the rogue had a most noble supper, and Steele and I sat among some scurvy company over a bowl of punch; so that I am come late home."
[21] See No. 202, end.