
Italian to supper, and asked the same favour of his accuser, who seemed to have
something curious and characteristic in his manner and disposition, resolving to
make himself an eye-witness of those surprising feats, which had given offence
to the choleric Briton. This scrupulous gentleman thanked our hero for his
courtesy, but declined communicating with the stranger, until his character
should be further explained; upon which his inviter, after some conversation
with the charlatan, assured him that he would himself undertake for the
innocence of his art; and then he was prevailed upon to favour them with his
company.
    In the course of the conversation, Peregrine learnt that the Welchman was a
surgeon of Canterbury, who had been called in to a consultation at Dover, and
understanding that his name was Morgan, took the liberty of asking if he was not
the person so respectfully mentioned in the Adventures of Roderick Random. Mr.
Morgan assumed a look of gravity and importance at this interrogation, and
screwing up his mouth, answered, »Mr. Rantum, my goot sir, I believe upon my
conscience and salfation, is my very goot frient and wellwisher; and he and I
have been companions and messmates and fellow-sufferers, look you; but
nevertheless, for all that, peradventure, he hath not pehaved with so much
complaisance and affability and respect, as I might have expected from him;
pecause he hath revealed and tivulged and buplished our private affairs, without
my knowledge and privity and consent; but as God is my safiour, I think he had
no evil intention in his pelly; and though there be certain persons, look you,
who, as I am told, take upon them to laugh at his descriptions of my person,
deportment and conversation, I do affirm and maintain, and insist with my heart,
and my plood and my soul, that those persons are no petter than ignorant asses,
and that they know not how to discern and distinguish and define true ridicule,
or as Aristotle calls it, the to geloion, no more, look you, than a herd of
mountain goats; for I will make pold to observe, and I hope this goot company
will be of the same opinion, that there is nothing said of me in that
performance, which is unworthy of a christian and a shentleman.«
    Our young gentleman and his friends acquiesced in the justness of his
observation, and Peregrine particularly assured him, that from reading the book,
he had conceived the utmost regard and veneration for his character; and that he
thought himself extremely fortunate in having this opportunity of enjoying his
conversation.
