SIR JO. Pray, Mr. Sharper, embrace my Back. Very well. By the Lord Harry, Mr. Sharper, he’s as brave a fellow as Cannibal, are not you, Bully-Back?
SHARP. Hannibal, I believe you mean, Sir Joseph.
BLUFF. Undoubtedly he did, sir; faith, Hannibal was a very pretty fellow—but, Sir Joseph, comparisons are odious—Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days, it must be granted—but alas, sir! were he alive now, he would be nothing, nothing in the earth.
SHARP. How, sir! I make a doubt if there be at this day a greater general breathing.
BLUFF. Oh, excuse me, sir! Have you served abroad, sir?
SHARP. Not I, really, sir.
BLUFF. Oh, I thought so. Why, then, you can know nothing, sir: I am afraid you scarce know the history of the late war in Flanders, with all its particulars.
SHARP. Not I, sir, no more than public letters or gazettes tell us.
BLUFF. Gazette! Why there again now. Why, sir, there are not three words of truth the year round put into the Gazette. I’ll tell you a strange thing now as to that. You must know, sir, I was resident in Flanders the last campaign, had a small post there, but no matter for that. Perhaps, sir, there was scarce anything of moment done but an humble servant of yours, that shall be nameless, was an eye-witness of. I won’t say had the greatest share in’t, though I might say that too, since I name nobody you know. Well, Mr. Sharper, would you think it? In all this time, as I hope for a truncheon, this rascally gazette-writer never so much as once mentioned me—not once, by the wars—took no more notice than as if Nol. Bluffe had not been in the land of the living.
SHARP. Strange!