Jump to content

Page:The Vicar of Wakefield (Volume 2) - Goldsmith (1766, 1st edition).djvu/108

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
106
The Vicar of Wakefield.

their welfare could induce me to this; that I was their fellow prisoner, and now gained nothing by preaching. I was sorry, I said, to hear them so very prophane; because they got nothing by it, but might lose a great deal: "For be assured, my friends," cried I, "for you are my friends, how­ever the world may disclaim your friend­ship, though you swore twelve thousand oaths in a day, it would not put one penny in your purse. Then what signi­fies calling every moment upon the de­vil, and courting his friendship, since you find how scurvily he uses you. He has given you nothing here, you find, but a mouthful of oaths and an empty belly; and by the best accounts. I have of him, he will give you nothing that's good hereafter.

"If used ill in our dealings with one man, we naturally go elsewhere. Were it not worth your while then, just to try"how