Page:Passions 2.pdf/104

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92
THE ELECTION:

Freeman's friends would have stay'd from the poll, too, after solemnly promising their votes? I am sure you are too polite not to do me the justice to confess that these things were not to be counted upon. A pinch of your snuff, if you please: you keep the best rappee of any gentleman in the county.

Serv. But what can you say for yourself in the present bussiness, Mr. Jenkison? I'm sure, my client, Mr. Baltimore, has given you advantages enough, if you had known how to use them. Since his quarrel with Mr. Freeman in the prison, have not you and I gone between them with at least half-a-dozen of messages, unknown to their friends? and nothing but a paltry meeting with pistols to come of it after all! It is a disgrace to the profession.

Jenk. What could I have done, Mr. Servet?

Serv. What could you have done! Has not my client by my mouth, told your client in pretty plain terms, in return to all his amicable advances, that he is a liar, and a hypocrite, and a knave, and a coward; and with but very little difficulty on your part a kick or a cudgel might have been added: and do you ask me what was to be done with all this? A meeting with pistols, indeed! It is a disgrace to the profession. I once procured for a smug-faced client of mine a good douse o' the chops, which put a couple of hundred pounds into his pocket; enabling him thereby to run off with a rich heiress, and make his fortune, as you may well say by a stroke. As for myself I put, of course, double the sum in my own.