alehouse boy who attended always in the house to supply the workmen.
My companion at the press drank every day a pint before breakfast,
a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between
breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon
about six o'clock, and another when he had done his day's work.
I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he suppos'd,
to drink strong beer, that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored
to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could
only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved
in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a
pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint
of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer.
He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay
out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor;
an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep
themselves always under.
Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the composing-room, I left
the pressmen; a new bien venu or sum for drink, being five shillings,
was demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it an imposition,
as I had paid below; the master thought so too, and forbad my paying it.
I stood out two or three weeks, was accordingly considered as
an excommunicate, and bad so many little pieces of private mischief
done me, by mixing my sorts, transposing my pages, breaking my matter,
etc., etc., if I were ever so little out of the room, and all
ascribed to the chappel ghost, which they said ever haunted those not
regularly admitted, that, notwithstanding the master's protection,
I found myself oblig'd to comply and pay the money, convinc'd of the
folly of being on ill terms with those one is to live with continually.
I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquir'd
considerable influence. I propos'd some reasonable alterations
in their chappel<4> laws, and carried them against all opposition.
From my example, a great part of them left their muddling breakfast
of beer, and bread, and cheese, finding they could with me be
suppli'd from a neighboring house with a large porringer of hot
water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbl'd with bread, and a bit
of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer, viz., three
half-pence. This was a more comfortable as well as cheaper breakfast,
and kept their heads clearer. Those who continued sotting with beer
all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the alehouse,
and us'd to make interest with me to get beer; their light, as they
phrased it, being out. I watch'd the pay-table on Saturday night,
and collected what I stood engag'd for them, having to pay sometimes
near thirty shillings a week on their account. This, and my being
esteem'd a pretty good riggite, that is, a jocular verbal satirist,
supported my consequence in the society. My constant attendance
(I never making a St. Monday) recommended me to the master;
and my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being put
upon all work of dispatch, which was generally better paid.