“Except with a friend, Tom--except with a friend. Thou wilt never be such a dogbolt as to refuse a hint to a friend? Come, you get too wise and statesman-like for your office.--The ligatures of thy most peasantly jacket there are like to burst with thy secret. Come, undo a button, man; it is for the health of thy constitution--Let out a reef; and let thy chosen friend know what is meditating. Thou knowest I am as true as thyself to little Anthony, if he can but get uppermost.” “_If_, thou lordly infidel!” said Chiffinch--“talk’st thou to me of _ifs?_--There is neither _if_ nor _and_ in the matter. The great Madam shall be pulled a peg down--the great Plot screwed a peg or two up. Thou knowest Ned?--Honest Ned had a brother’s death to revenge.” “I have heard so,” said the nobleman; “and that his persevering resentment of that injury was one of the few points which seemed to be a sort of heathenish virtue in him.” “Well,” continued Chiffinch, “in manoeuvring to bring about this revenge, which he hath laboured at many a day, he hath discovered a treasure.” “What!--In the Isle of Man?” said his companion. “Assure yourself of it.--She is a creature so lovely, that she needs but be seen to put down every one of the favourites, from Portsmouth and Cleveland down to that threepenny baggage, Mistress Nelly.” “By my word, Chiffinch,” said my lord, “that is a reinforcement after the fashion of thine own best tactics. But bethink thee, man! To make such a conquest, there wants more than a cherry-cheek and a bright eye--there must be wit--wit, man, and manners, and a little sense besides, to keep influence when it is gotten.” “Pshaw! will you tell me what goes to this vocation?” said Chiffinch. “Here, pledge me her health in a brimmer.--Nay, you shall do it on knees, too.--Never such a triumphant beauty was seen--I went to church on purpose, for the first time these ten years--Yet I lie, it was not to church neither--it was to chapel.” “To chapel!--What the devil, is she a Puritan?” exclaimed the other courtier. “To be sure she is. Do you think I would be accessory to bringing a Papist into favour in these times, when, as my good Lord said in the House, there should not be a Popish manservant, nor a Popish maid-servant, not so much as dog or cat, left to bark or mew about the King!”[*] [*] Such was the extravagance of Shaftesbury’s eloquence. “But consider, Chiffie, the dislikelihood of her pleasing,” said the noble courtier.--“What! old Rowley, with his wit, and love of wit--his wildness, and love of wildness--he form a league with a silly, scrupulous, unidea’d Puritan!--Not if she were Venus.” “Thou knowest nought of the matter,” answered Chiffinch. “I tell thee, the fine contrast between the seeming saint and falling sinner will give zest to the old gentleman’s inclination. If I do not know him, who does?--Her health, my lord, on your bare knee, as you would live to be of the bedchamber.”