Snuffle. The next upon the list is Peter Primmer, the schoolmaster.
Heel. Ay, neighbours, and a sufficient man: let me tell you, master Primmer is a man for my money; a man of learning, that can lay down the law: why, adzooks, he is wise enough to puzzle the parson; and then, how you have heard him oration at the Adam and Eve of a Saturday night, about Russia and Prussia. ’Ecod, George Gage, the exciseman, is nothing at all to un.
4 Mob. A Primmer.
Heel. Ay, if the folks above did but know him. Why, lads, he will make us all statesmen in time.
2 Mob. Indeed!
Heel. Why, he swears as how all the miscarriages are owing to the great people’s not learning to read.
3 Mob. Indeed!
Heel. “For,” says Peter, says he, “if they would but once submit to be learned by me, there is no knowing to what a pitch the nation might rise.”
1 Mob. Ay, I wish they would.
Sneak. Crispin, what, is Peter Primmer a candidate?