Mr.Lavement had attempted more than once to introduce a vegetable diet into his family, by launching out into the praise of roots and greens, and decrying the use of flesh, both as a physician and philosopher; but all his rhetoric could not make one proselyte to his opinion, and even the wife of his bosom declared against the proposal.
One afternoon, when her husband was abroad, and his daughter gone to visit, this lady ordered me to call a hackney-coach, in which she and the captain drove towards Covent Garden.

Miss came home in the evening, and, supping at her usual hour, went to bed.

About eleven o'clock my master entered, and asked if his wife was gone to sleep: upon which I told him, my mistress went out in the afternoon, and was not yet returned.

This was like a clap of thunder to the poor apothecary, who starting back, cried, "Mort de ma vie! vat you tell a me?
My vife not at home!" At that instant a patient's servant arrived with a prescription for a draught, which my master taking, went into the shop to make it up with his own hand.

While he rubbed the ingredients in a glass mortar, he inquired of me, whether or no his wife went out alone; and no sooner heard that she was in company with the captain, than with one blow he split the mortar into a thousand pieces, and grinning like the head of a bass viol, exclaimed, "Ah, traitresse!" It would have been impossible for me to have preserved my gravity a minute longer, when I was happily relieved by a rap at the door, which I opened, and perceived my mistress coming out of the coach.