Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/326

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316
POLITE CONVERSATION.

Miss. Here's a pin for that lie; I'm sure liars had need have good memories. Pray, colonel, was not he very uncivil to me but just now?

Lady Answ. Mr. Neverout, if miss will be angry for nothing, take my counsel, and bid her turn the buckle of her girdle behind her.

Neverout. Come, lady Answerall, I know better things; miss and I are good friends; don't put tricks upon travellers.

Col. Tom, not a word of the pudden, I beg you.

Lady Smart. Ah, colonel! you'll never be good, nor then neither.

Ld. Sparkish. Which of the goods d'ye mean? good for something, or good for nothing?

Miss. I have a blister on my tongue; yet I don't remember I told a lie.

Lady Answ. I thought you did just now.

Ld. Sparkish. Pray, madam, what did thought do?

Lady Answ. Well, for my life, I cannot conceive what your lordship means.

Ld. Sparkish. Indeed, madam, I meant no harm.

Lady Smart. No, to be sure, my lord! you are as innocent as a devil of two years old.

Neverout. Madam, they say, ill doers are ill deemers; but I don't apply it to your ladyship.


Miss mending a hole in her lace.


Miss. Well, you see, I'm mending; I hope I shall be good in time; look, lady Answerall, is it not well mended?

Lady Answ. Ay, this is something like a tansy.

Neverout. Faith, miss, you have mended, as a tinker mends a kettle; stop one hole, and make two.

Lady