[The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 by Charles Lamb]@TWC D-Link book
The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4

PROLOGUE, SPOKEN BY MR
46/217

We all mean the same thing, only you express yourself one way, and I another, that's all.

The meaning's the same; it is all pork.
_Mr.H._ That's another of your phrases, I presume.
[_Bell rings, and the Landlord called for._ _Landlord._ Anon, anon.
_Mr.H._ Oh, I wish I were anonymous.
[_Exeunt several ways._ SCENE .-- _Melesinda's Apartment._ MELESINDA _and Maid._ _Maid._ Lord, Madam! before I'd take on as you do about a foolish--what signifies a name?
Hogs--Hogs--what is it--is just as good as any other, for what I see.
_Melesinda._ Ignorant creature! yet she is perhaps blest in the absence of those ideas, which, while they add a zest to the few pleasures which fall to the lot of superior natures to enjoy, doubly edge the---- _Maid._ Superior natures! a fig! If he's hog by name, he's not hog by nature, that don't follow--his name don't make him anything, does it?
He don't grunt the more for it, nor squeak, that ever I hear; he likes his victuals out of a plate, as other Christians do; you never see him go to the trough---- _Melesinda._ Unfeeling wretch! yet possibly her intentions---- _Maid._ For instance, Madam, my name is Finch--Betty Finch.

I don't whistle the more for that, nor long after canary-seed while I can get good wholesome mutton--no, nor you can't catch me by throwing salt on my tail.

If you come to that, hadn't I a young man used to come after me, they said courted me--his name was Lion, Francis Lion, a tailor; but though he was fond enough of me, for all that he never offered to eat me.
_Melesinda._ How fortunate that the discovery has been made before it was too late! Had I listened to his deceits, and, as the perfidious man had almost persuaded me, precipitated myself into an inextricable engagement before---- _Maid._ No great harm if you had.

You'd only have bought a pig in a poke--and what then?
Oh, here he comes creeping---- _Enter_ MR.


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