_Roger_, they were against him; and that if _Roger_ did not like to have him on the bench, they would soon put a _spoke in his wheel_, and stop his driving. _Roger_ thanked them, but thought himself as good a workman as any of them, and _put the spoke into the wheel_ without standing to their curtesy; so the _boatman_ went back to his station. _Roger_ now had a clear view of every thing they intended, and how they put off matters to a more lucky time. _Roger_ had few tricks in him; but was not to be _caught with chaff_. Moreover, he had used some times to set traps in the meadows to catch the _old foxes_, and thought it might be easy to snap the _cubs_. _NIM_’s _party_, for he appeared but little in it himself, were all youngsters, and made a kind of privy-council for the _Parson_. There was, _imprimis_, young _Hopeful_; _Jack the attorney_, just out his time; _Dick_ the clerk in the excise-office: But their chief strength was _ancient Pistol_, lately come from the wars, and content, while the peace lasted, to _doff_ his sword and jack-boots for the more gainful employment of a _scrivener_; and to do the _blade_ justice, he wrote a main _good hand_, and was a fair spoken lad as you would hear in a hundred; but he was deadly fond of _pitch’d battles_, with as little luck as they had in _Flanders_, and seemed to have less skill in a _home_ war than a _foreign one_, where he behaved as well as any of them. _Roger_ saw them in high spirits, and soon gave them an opportunity of exerting them. _Gimcrack_, one of their cronies, had been _put in_ by the _deputy_ to oversee the _bridges_ in the county, repair market-houses and hospitals, (tho’ not the session-house) and was allowed handsomely for his trouble. Now, it was _Gimcrack_’s misfortune, not to know the difference between a _cube_ and _arch_, a _skylight_ and a _Venetian_, and other things of little consequence in masonry; but the material part of the _mystery_ he understood _to a root_. If he repaired a bridge, he charged _double_; if he did not repair it, _quadruple_; if there was _no bridge, sixteen_; and so, all in _geometrical_ proportions, that he might not go _out of rule_. When he brought his bill before the _grand-jury, Hopeful_ wondered how he could work so cheap; _Pistol_ moved he might have the thanks of the county for his _parsimonious_ management of the publick money, _ten pounds_ of which he saved them to demonstration; for in one bill he charged _twenty_, and in another only _ten pounds_. But when _Roger_ looked on the _dates_, he found the _last_ bill was _twenty_, which seemed to him to overturn the demonstration; and, for the little he knew of _arithmetick_, thought it looked more like _addition_ than _substraction_. But _Gimcrack_’s friends made light of these remarks, clapped him on the back, and swore they would bear him harmless.