The turnkey no sooner had admitted Mrs. _Clotilda_, and her paramour, than the knowing ones resolved themselves into a committee of the whole house, how to consider ways and means to make Mrs. _Clotilda_ pay through the nose for introducing such an affair to their august tribunal; the _Diet_ had not sat full two minutes, before they all _nem. con._ entered into one unanimous resolution to bring the taylor her lawful and wedded husband into a præmunire; they therefore set up a kind of a Star-Chamber, which they erected, by their own will and power, as _Charles_ did _formerly_ and as _Lewis_ pretends to do _now_, with this Motto, _Sic volo sic jubeo_. In English, _I’ll do as I please_; so laying aside all _privileges_ of the subject, and assuming to themselves, the _royal prerogative_, which they swore should not be infringed; they demanded that the bodies of _Clotilda Skinflint_ late of _Monmouth-Street_, together with that of her lawful sovereign, _Peter Skinflint_, of the Parish of St. _Bride_’s, taylor, should be brought before them, in order to enter into the merits or demerits of the prisoner _Tom_, committed into that prison, by the name of _Tom Filch_, and moreover to demand the committal in writing; which being accordingly done, by the especial messengers, the delinquents were regularly brought to the bar of this solemn inquisition. We shall disappoint the reader’s curiosity, if he expects a summary detail of this process, because it was carried regularly through the forms of cital, and recital, demur, and every other circumstantial querk of judicatory; only observing, that when Mrs. _Clotilda_, and her party, seeing the _Servant Maid_, with _Tom_ in her arms, did not chuse to traverse the _Indictment_ but submitted to the sentence of the court, which was, that she, the said, _Clotilda_ as she _wore the breeches_, should immediately pay all the fees of _Tom_, besides, his expences for _false imprisonment_, pay the servant maid her due wages, and never more trouble the court, to which she submitted, and paid no less than the sum of seventeen shillings, and four-pence, to the clerk of the court, exclusive of the girl’s wages, in all amounting to one pound thirteen shillings. But unhappily for Mrs. _Clotilda_, the affair did not end here. _Tom the Cat_, had got little or no victuals, since the moment of his false imprisonment, and besides, it was urged by the girl, that the beef-stakes, which he had eaten, were long since digested; therefore it was _unâ voce_ resolved, that they should not be discharged till _Tom_ had also been recompensed with a good meal, in consideration of his long and false imprisonment. Mrs. _Clotilda_ therefore offered one shilling more, to be laid out, as they, the court should determine, which was accordingly, like all other subsidies of charitable uses, appointed for _Tom_’s use, and bread, and cheese was to be his supper, of which he only shared the parings. The lady of the wardrobe having paid