.

How Jack's friends came to visit him in prison, and what.
advice they gave him.
Jack hitherto had passed in the world for a poor, simple, well-meaning, half-witted, crack-brained fellow.

People were strangely surprised to find him in such a roguery--that he should disguise himself under a false name, hire himself out for a servant to an old gentlewoman, only for an opportunity to poison her.

They said that it was more generous to profess open enmity than under a profound dissimulation to be guilty of such a scandalous breach of trust, and of the sacred rights of hospitality; in short, the action was universally condemned by his best friends.

They told him in plain terms that this was come as a judgment upon him for his loose life, his gluttony, drunkenness, and avarice; for laying aside his father's will in an old mouldy trunk, and turning stock-jobber, newsmonger, and busybody, meddling with other people's affairs, shaking off his old serious friends, and keeping company with buffoons and pickpockets, his father's sworn enemies; that he had best throw himself upon the mercy of the court, repent, and change his manners.