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There we sat, poor dear little puppets, with our eyes strained on the prayerbooks, always in the wrong place, during the offertory, and, after the sermon had begun, repeating the text over and over again, whilst the preaching continued, lest we should forget it; whilst all this time the bigger boys in the rear were studying novels, or playing at odd-and-even for nuts, marbles, or halfpence.
Their pockets were ransacked, and the halfpence, knives, and watches were placed in the bottom of the bag and lowered. Still the wood-work kept afloat. "There are the bugles, Tom," Peter cried in delight. These had been fastened to the raft, and were now hastily untied and placed in the canvas bag. It sank now, and the boys lowered it five or six feet, so that they could partly see into it.
If a patriot be a man who nobly teaches a people to become aware of its highest functions as a nation, then was Swift a great patriot, and he better deserves that title than many who have been accorded it. The matter of Wood's Halfpence was a trivial one in itself; but it was just that kind of a matter which Swift must instantly have appreciated as the happiest for his purpose.
Had another pane of glass been broken by a Seminary ball, the value thereof in a packet of halfpence, with an expression of regret, would have been handed in before evening.
The cursed landlord kept dodging about from the kitchen into the room, and from the room into the kitchen, watching the nameless ones, and going a step forward to save his crowns, and going a step back to save his crown, in case they should be real gentlemen; and he acted like a brave and prudent host who likes halfpence and objects to kicks; but under pretence of properly attending to them, he always had an ear in the room, and a foot in the court; fancied he was always being called by them, came every time they laughed, showing them a face with an unsettled look upon it, and always said, "Gentlemen, what is your pleasure?"
"Many of the boys obtain employment out of school hours, for which they are paid and for which they may receive food; others learn to hang about the gasworks and similar places, and get scraps of food and halfpence from the workmen.
'There we are, said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the better judgment of his work; 'as near the real thing as sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that the whole front of the house opens at once! If there was only a staircase in it, now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! But that's the worst of my calling, I'm always deluding myself, and swindling myself.
"Not now," answered the Traveller; then, turning round to Dealtry, he said: "Are you landlord here?" "At your service," said Peter, with the indifference of a man well to do, and not ambitious of halfpence. "Come, then, quick budge," said the Traveller, tapping him on the back: "bring more glasses another jug of the October; and any thing or every thing your larder is able to produce d'ye hear?"
On Friday, September 20th, the House resolved itself into a committee "to take into consideration the state of the nation, particularly in relation to the importing and uttering of copper halfpence and farthings in this kingdom." After three days' debate, and after examining competent witnesses under oath, it passed resolutions to the following effect
For my part, when I hear a convert relating the violences and oaths and blasphemies he was guilty of before he was saved, making out that he was a very terrible fellow then and is the most contrite and chastened of Christians now, I believe him no more than I believe the millionaire who says he came up to London or Chicago as a boy with only three halfpence in his pocket.
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