chap, v.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 121 



so high a contest about it, as none that knows the 

 faithfulness of one gipsy to another, will easily be- 

 lieve ; onlv we that have lived these last twenty 

 years, are certain that money has been able to do 

 much mischief. However the Gipsies were too 

 wise to go to law, and did therefore choose their 

 choice friends Rook and Shark, and our late English 

 Gusman to be their arbitrators and umpires. And so 

 thev left this honey- suckle hedge ; and went to tell 

 fortunes, and cheat, and get more money and lodg- 

 ing in the next village. 



When these were gone, we heard as high a con- 

 tention amongst the Beggars, whether it was easiest 

 to rip a cloak, or to unrip a cloak ? One Beggar 

 affirmed it was all one : but that was denied, by 

 asking her, if doing and undoing were all one ? Then 

 another said, 'twas easiest to unrip a cloak, for that 

 was to let it alone : but she was answered, by ask- 

 ing her, how she unripped it, if she let it alone ? 

 and she confessed herself mistaken. These, and 

 twenty such- like questions were proposed, and an- 

 swered with as much beggarly logic and earnest- 

 ness, as was ever heard to proceed from the mouth 

 of the most pertinacious schismatic ; and sometimes 

 all the Beggars, whose number was neither more 

 nor less than the poets' nine muses, talked all to- 

 gether about this ripping and unripping ; and so 

 loud that not one heard what the other said : but 

 at last one Beggar craved audience, and told them, 

 that old father Clause, whom Ben Jonson in his Beg- 



