“Sir, said I, is it possible you can be so great a Stranger to the Court, as to imagine Merit carries any Weight with it.  Your Certificates prove you have done your Duty like a gallant Officer; but then you have done no more than what was expected from you, and what you were paid for.”

“I acknowledge what your Honour says, replied the Colonel, but I can name many, who have run away, or been taken violently ill at the time of a Battle, and who are not only continued in Post, but even advanced.”

I answer’d, it was very true; but that such Fowls were otherwise serviceable in the Government, had handsome Wives or Daughters, or could procure such of their Acquaintance, or perhaps were elected into the Grand Council of the Nation, and had a Vote to dispose of.

But, Sir, I will deal with you ingenuously, I can do you no Service at all in this Affair; for the Minister has so many Bable-Cypherians (in English_, Members of the Great Council)_ to oblige, and they have so many Valet de Chambres, Butlers, and Footmen to provide for in the Hospital, that it’s more likely the Officers and Soldiers now there will be turn’d out to make Place for them, than any other will be admitted.  If you have Interest to get a Number of these Bable-Cypherians to back your Petition, which you may get, if you can bribe and cajole the Attendants of their Squabbaws, or their own Valets, it’s possible you may succeed in your Pretensions.

“I’ll sooner, said he, starve, than be guilty of so great a Condescension, or more properly, so mean an Action.”  This he said with some Warmth, and I replied as coolly, it was in his own Option.  “I find then, said the Colonel, you won’t serve me.”

  I have, said I, given you Reasons which prove this Way I cannot: 
  But if giving your Petition and Certificates to the Emperor will be
  of use, I’ll venture to do it for you.

“The Emperor, replied he, is a good Prince, but has little Interest with the Minister; and to hope any thing, but thro’ his Canal, is altogether vain.”  Saying this, he took his Leave in a very courteous manner.  The Minister was inform’d, that I had entertain’d a long Discourse with this Officer, and ask’d me the Subject of it.  I told him what he desired, but that I declined troubling his Excellency with such Trifles.

“These Fowls, said he, who build on their own Merit, are extremely impertinent.  The Colonel now in Question is one of your Fowls who might by his Principles have made a Fortune, had he lived Two or Three Hundred Years ago; but they are now obsolete, and he starves by tenaciously practising his musty Morals.  Why, he’ll have the Impudence to be always speaking Truth; and tho’ he has been thrust out of the Palace for this Vice more than once, he is not to be corrected.  He will tell a Fowl of Quality without Ceremony, that