Though his life pass somewhat
slidingly, yet he seems very careful of the time, for he is still
drawing his watch out of his pocket, and spends part of his hours in
numbering them. He is one never serious but with his tailor, when he is
in conspiracy for the next device. He is furnished with his jests, as
some wanderer with sermons, some three for all congregations, one
especially against the scholar, a man to him much ridiculous, whom he
knows by no other definition but a silly fellow in black. He is a kind
of walking mercer's shop, and shews you one stuff to-day and another
to-morrow; an ornament to the room he comes in as the fair bed and
hangings be; and is merely ratable accordingly, fifty or an hundred
pounds as his suit is. His main ambition is to get a knighthood, and
then an old lady, which if he be happy in, he fills the stage and a
coach so much longer: Otherwise, himself and his clothes grow stale
together, and he is buried commonly ere he dies, in the gaol or
the country.
A CONSTABLE
Is a viceroy in the street, and no man stands more upon't that he is the
king's officer. His jurisdiction extends to the next stocks, where he
has commission for the heels only, and sets the rest of the body at
liberty. He is a scarecrow to that ale-house, where he drinks not his
morning draught, and apprehends a drunkard for not standing in the
king's name. Beggars fear him more than the justice, and as much as the
whip-stock, whom he delivers over to his subordinate magistrates, the
bridewell-man and the beadle.
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