234. A smart fellow thinking to show his wit one night at the tavern, called to the drawer, Here, Mercury, said he, take away this bottle full of emptiness. Said one of the company, Do you speak that, Jack, of your own head?
235. An extravagant young fellow, rallying a frugal country ’squire, who had a good estate, and spent but little of it, said, among other things, I’ll warrant you that plate-buttoned suit was your great-grandfather’s. Yes, said the other, and I have my great-grandfather’s lands too.
236. A gentleman having sent for his carpenter’s servant to knock a nail or two in his study, the fellow, after he had done, scratched his ears, and said, He hoped the gentleman would give him something to make him drink. Make you drink? says the gentleman, there’s a pickle herring for you, and if that won’t make you drink I’ll give you another.
237. Alphonso, king of Naples, sent a moor, who had been his captive a long time, to Barbary, with a considerable sum of money to purchase horses, and to return by such a time. There was about the king a buffoon, or jester, who had a table-book, wherein he used to register any remarkable absurdity that happened at court. The day the moor was dispatched to Barbary, the said jester waiting on the king at supper, the king called for his table-book, in which the jester kept a regular journal of absurdities. The king took the book, and read, how Alphonso, king of Naples, had sent Beltram the moor, who had been a long time his prisoner, to Morocco, his own country, with so many thousand crowns to buy horses. The king turned to the jester, and asked, why he inserted that? Because, said he, I think he will never come back to be a prisoner again; and so you have lost both man and money. But, if he does come, says the king, then your jest is marred: No, sir, replies the buffoon, for if he should return, I will blot out your name, and put in his for a fool.
238. A sharper of the town seeing a country gentleman sit alone at an inn, and thinking something might be made of him, he went and sat near him, and took the liberty to drink to him. Having thus introduced himself, he called for a paper of tobacco, and said, Do you smoke, sir? Yes, says the gentleman, very gravely, any one that has a design upon me.
239. A certain country farmer was observed never to be in a good humour when he was hungry; for this reason, his wife was fain carefully to watch the time of his coming home, and always have dinner ready on the table; one day he surprised her, and she had only time to set a mess of broth ready for him, who, soon, according to custom, began to open his pipes, and maundering over his broth, forgetting what he was about, burnt his mouth to some purpose. The good wife seeing him in that sputtering condition, comforted him as follows: See what it is now, had you kept your breath to cool your pottage, you had not burnt your mouth, John.
240. The same woman taking up dinner once on a Sunday, it happened that the lickerish plough-boy, who lay under a strong and violent temptation, pinched off the corner of a plum dumpling; which his dame espying, in a great rage, laid the wooden ladle over his pate, saying, Can’t you stay, sirrah, till your betters are served before you? The boy clapping his hand on his head, and seeing the blood come, ’tis very hard, said he. So it is, sirrah, said she, or it had not broke my ladle.
241. Three gentlemen being at a tavern, whose names were Moore, Strange, and Wright: said the last, There is but one knave in company, and that is Strange: Yes, answered Strange, there is one Moore: Ay, said Moore, that’s Wright.