Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/341

tainment had been for your tenant, with his half year's rent. I am sorry it was on account of some scrub drapier, of whom I never heard. Only I know they are all rogues, and I shall not pay for their extravagance. I forgot to tell you that the barrack-surgeon prescribed the very same medicine that you advised for my shin. My leg is so well, that I have been twice riding, and walk in the town, that is to say in the dirt, every day. We have now a fine frost, and walk safe from dirt; but it is like a life at court, very slippery. I do not like to see my money laid out in cleaning curtains, and covering chairs; but since, as you say, you are pleased to be at that expense, I thankfully submit. The doctor will be with you on Friday next: he goes to see the Grand Monde, and beg subscriptions to build a schoolhouse. He taxes you only at ten guineas. I am to stay with madam and his daughter until his return, which will be about a month hence, when the days grow longer and warmer. Pox take country ladies' dinners. In spite of all I could say, I was kept so late by their formality on Thursday last, that I was forced to ride five miles after night fall, on the worst road in Europe, or county of Cavan. The doctor cannot have time to write a word: he expects a rogue of an agent this evening, who will not come, with two or three hundred pounds arrears, by which means I shall be kept here for want of money, which I was fool enough to expect to get from him, to bear my charges back. My shin cost me three guineas, and I brought but twenty pounds. I desire the room and bed I lie in may be often aired. The doctor will not lie at the deanery, because it is far from his friends, and he is afraid of robbers. I