Jonathan Wild

into the World. His Acquai

d one count La Ruse, a man of considerable figure in those days, and had confined him to his own house till he could find two seconds who would in a formal manner give their words that the count should, at a certain day and place appointed, answer all that one Thomas Thimble, a taylor, had to say to him; which Thomas Thimble, it seems, alleged that the count had, according to the law of the realm, made over his body to him as a security for some suits of cloaths to him delivered by the said Thomas Thimble. Now as the count, though perfectly a man of honour, could not immediately find these sec

not (as by the strict rules of law he was enabled) confine him to his chamber. The count had his liberty of the whole house, and M

nated the captive count, and endeavoured by all means to make his confinement less irksome to him; which, though they were both very beautiful, they could

es a neighbouring young gentleman or lady came in to their assistance: but the most frequent guest was young master Wild, who had been educated from his infancy with the Miss Snaps, and was, by all the neighbours, allotted for the husband of Miss Tishy, or Laetitia,

he count’s discernment; for though this latter was so expert at his cards that he was proverbially said to PLAY THE WHOLE GAME, he was no match for master Wild, who, inexperienced as he was, notwithstanding all the art, the dexterity,

she indulged him with little innocent freedoms about her person in return, he thought himself obliged to be contented; but one night, when Wild imagined the count asleep, he made so unguarded an attack upon him, that the other caught him i

ny other such instances of ingenuity, operated so violently on the count, that, notwithstanding the disparity which age, title, and above all, dress, had set between them, he resolved to enter into an acquaintance with Wild. This soon produced a perfect intimacy, and that a friendship, which had a longer duration than is common to that passion be