[The History of John Bull by John Arbuthnot]@TWC D-Link book
The History of John Bull

CHAPTER XI
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The more young and inexperienced he used to teach to talk saucily, and call names.

During his stay in the family there was much plate missing; being caught with a couple of silver spoons in his pocket, with their handles wrenched off, he said he was only going to carry them to the goldsmiths to be mended: that the said Timothy was hated by all the honest servants, for his ill-conditioned, splenetic tricks, but especially for his slanderous tongue; traducing them to their mistress as drunkards and thieves: that the said Timothy, by lying stories, used to set all the family together by the ears, taking delight to make them fight and quarrel; **particularly one day sitting at table, he spoke words to this effect: "I am of opinion," quoth he, "that little short fellows, such as we are, have better hearts, and could beat the tall fellows; I wish it came to a fair trial; I believe these long fellows, as sightly as they are, should find their jackets well thwacked." * Betraying the interests of the Church when got into preferments.
** The original of the distinction in the names of Low Churchmen and High Churchmen.
A parcel of tall fellows, who thought themselves affronted by the discourse, took up the quarrel, and to it they went, the tall men and the low men, which continues still a faction in the family, to the great disorder of our mistress's affairs.

The said Timothy carried this frolic so far, that he proposed to his mistress that she should entertain no servant that was above four feet seven inches high, and for that purpose had prepared a gauge, by which they were to be measured.

The good old gentlewoman was not so simple as to go into his projects--she began to smell a rat.

"This Trim," quoth she, "is an odd sort of a fellow; methinks he makes a strange figure with that ragged, tattered coat appearing under his livery; can't he go spruce and clean, like the rest of the servants?
The fellow has a roguish leer with him which I don't like by any means; besides, he has such a twang in his discourse, and an ungraceful way of speaking through the nose, that one can hardly understand him; I wish the fellow be not tainted with some bad disease." The witnesses further made oath, that the said Timothy lay out a-nights, and went abroad often at unseasonable hours; and it was credibly reported he did business in another family: that he pretended to have a squeamish stomach, and could not eat at table with the rest of the servants, though this was but a pretence to provide some nice bit for himself; that he refused to dine upon salt fish, only to have an opportunity to eat a calf's head (his favourite dish) in private; that for all his tender stomach, when he was got by himself, he could devour capons, turkeys, and sirloins of beef, like a cormorant.
Two other witnesses gave the following evidence: That in his officious attendance upon his mistress, he had tried to slip a powder into her drink, and that he was once caught endeavouring to stifle her with a pillow as she was asleep; that he and Ptschirnsooker were often in close conference, and that they used to drink together at the "Rose," where it seems he was well enough known by his true name of Jack.
The prisoner had little to say in his defence; he endeavoured to prove himself alibi, so that the trial turned upon this single question, whether the said Timothy Trim and Jack were the same person; which was proved by such plain tokens, and particularly by a mole under the left pap, that there was no withstanding the evidence; therefore the worshipful Mr.Justice committed him, in order to his trial..


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