"
"What didst forget, Tom?"
Tom slapt his thigh hilariously. "That I had an errand on hand. A good
joke, split me, Roxholm! Come with me; I go to see the picture of a
beauty, stole by the painter, who is always drunk, and with his clothes
in pawn, and lives in a garret in Rag Lane."
He was in the highest spirits over the adventure, and would drag
Roxholm with him, telling him the story as they went. The painter, who
was plainly enough a drunken rapscallion fellow, in strolling about the
country, getting his lodging and skin full of ale, now here, now there,
by daubing Turks' Heads, Foxes and Hounds, and Pigs and Whistles, as
signs for rustic ale-houses, had seen ride by one day a young lady of
such beauty that he had made a sketch of her from memory, and finding
where she lived, had hung about in the park to get a glimpse of her
again, and having succeeded, had made her portrait and brought it back
to town, in the hope that some gentleman might be taken by its charms
and buy it.
"He hath drunk himself down to his last groat, and will let it go for a
song now," said Tom. "I would get there before any other fellow does.
Jack Wyse and Hal Langton both want it, but they have gamed their
pockets empty, and wait till necessity forces him to lower his price to
their means. But an hour since I heard that he had pawned his breeches
and lay in bed writing begging letters.
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