garnish; or like a discovered shoplifter, left to the mercy of Exchange women[1]; or like a bawd in her old velvet petticoat, resigned into the secular hands of the mobile. Like any, or like all of these, a medley of rags and lace, and rents, and fringes, unfortunate Jack did now appear: he would have been extremely glad to see his coat in the condition of Martin's, but infinitely gladder to find that of Martin in the same predicament with his. However, since neither of these was likely to come to pass, he thought fit to lend the whole business another turn, and to dress up necessity into a virtue. Therefore, after as many of the fox's arguments[2] as he could muster up, for bringing Martin to reason, as he called it; or, as he meant it, into his own ragged, bobtailed condition; and observing he said all to little purpose; what, alas! was left for the forlorn Jack to do, but after a million of scurrilities against his brother, to run mad with spleen, and spite, and contradiction. To be short, here began a mortal breach between these two. Jack went immediately to new lodgings, and in a few days it was for certain reported, that he had run out
- ↑ The galleries over the piazzas in the Royal Exchange were formerly filled with shops, kept chiefly by women; the same use was made of a building called the New Exchange in the Strand; this edifice has been pulled down; the shopkeepers have removed from the Royal Exchange into Cornhill, and the adjacent streets; and there are now no remains of Exchange women, but in Exeter change, and they are no longer deemed the first ministers of fashion.
- ↑ The fox in the fable, who having been caught in a trap and lost his tail, used many arguments to persuade the rest to cut off theirs; that the singularity of his deformity might not expose him to derision.
