The great store of Rain that fell, and made the High-ways like Hasty Pudding, by which means though I rid in Shooes and Stockins, yet I was sufficiently be-booted with dirt. I rid over the Common melancholy alone, but coming to _Maiden-Head Thicket_, there was company enough such as I liked not by any means, and now _Gramercy Horse_, for had not he looked as scurvily as I rid bootlesly scandalous, I had undoubtedly been robb’d; never was poor Horse, and beastly Man so survey’d before, by Devils I think, for their Faces by their Vizard-Masques seemed every whit as black. Escaping that danger, I got the second days journey to _Reading_, alighting, I fell all along, for I had kickt away my Leggs in riding thither, Never did I find the difference till now of riding on a Yard-arm, and on the sharp-ridg’d back of a surfeited Jade; I had not so much skin left upon my Breech as would make a white patch for an _Ethiopian_ Lady of Pleasure. Here I lay three days to recover the damage my posteriors had sustained by riding my wooden Horse. In which time I observed but little remarkable, but a Tapsters Playing with a fellow of the Town for Money in a little By Ale-House, where was sold incomparable Ale, which I found out by the information of a Coblar, the reflection of whose face would have afforded light enough to an Ale-house at Mid-night. * * * * * I was a spectator on their Play, and glad I was of this opportunity, to divert my self in a strange place. The Tapster in a little time had lost to the other the price of 2 Barrels of Beer, which so inraged him, it being his all, that nothing could perswade him but that he was cheated of his Money, that he napt on him, and I know not what, and swore he would have every penny of his Mony before he should stir from the place. The other told him that he had won it fairly, and therefore would as surely keep it; hereupon the Tapster struck up his heels, and to work he went with him, the fellow seeing his drift that he would dispossess him of his Money, got as much as he could privately out of his Pocket, and clapt it into his mouth cramming it almost full. The Tapster was amazed to find so little in his Pockets, and therefore made all the Privy search he could, which was all to no purpose, so that he concluded the fellow was little less than a Conjurer, after that he had tired himself with beating and kicking his Carkass, he did let him rise, the fellow for all his seeming resolution at first took this basting very patiently, and would have been gone willingly to avoid the second part of the same tune, had not the Tapster laid hold on him, saying, _Nay faith t’other box in the ear, and ’tother kick on the breech, and go and be damn’d_, so lifting his hand up, gave him a cuff on the face, that by the Noise of what dropt out of his Mouth, I verily believed he had not only struck out all his teeth, but had also fractur’d in pieces his