Mr. Esmond was waiting for the printer too, whose wife had gone to the tavern to fetch him, and was meantime engaged in drawing a picture of a soldier on horseback for a dirty little pretty boy of the printer’s wife, whom she had left behind her.

“I presume you are the editor of the Post-Boy, sir?” says the Doctor, in a grating voice that had an Irish twang; and he looked at the Colonel from under his two bushy eyebrows with a pair of very clear blue eyes.  His complexion was muddy, his figure rather fat, his chin double.  He wore a shabby cassock, and a shabby hat over his black wig, and he pulled out a great gold watch, at which he looks very fierce.

“I am but a contributor, Doctor Swift,” says Esmond, with the little boy still on his knee.  He was sitting with his back in the window, so that the Doctor could not see him.

“Who told you I was Dr. Swift?” says the Doctor, eying the other very haughtily.

“Your Reverence’s valet bawled out your name,” says the Colonel.  “I should judge you brought him from Ireland?”

“And pray, sir, what right have you to judge whether my servant came from Ireland or no?  I want to speak with your employer, Mr. Leach.  I’ll thank ye go fetch him.”

“Where’s your papa, Tommy?” asks the Colonel of the child, a smutty little wretch in a frock.

Instead of answering, the child begins to cry; the Doctor’s appearance had no doubt frightened the poor little imp.

“Send that squalling little brat about his business, and do what I bid ye, sir,” says the Doctor.

“I must finish, the picture first for Tommy,” says the Colonel, laughing.  “Here, Tommy, will you have your Pandour with whiskers or without?”

“Whisters,” says Tommy, quite intent on the picture.

“Who the devil are ye, sir?” cries the Doctor; “are ye a printer’s man or are ye not?” he pronounced it like naught.

“Your reverence needn’t raise the devil to ask who I am,” says Colonel Esmond.  “Did you ever hear of Doctor Faustus, little Tommy? or Friar Bacon, who invented gunpowder, and set the Thames on fire?”

Mr. Swift turned quite red, almost purple.  “I did not intend any offence, sir,” says he.

“I dare say, sir, you offended without meaning,” says the other, dryly.

“Who are ye, sir?  Do you know who I am, sir?  You are one of the pack of Grub Street scribblers that my friend Mr. Secretary hath laid by the heels.  How dare ye, sir, speak to me in this tone?” cries the Doctor, in a great fume.

“I beg your honor’s humble pardon if I have offended your honor,” says Esmond in a tone of great humility.  “Rather than be sent to the Compter, or be put in the pillory, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.  But Mrs. Leach, the printer’s lady, told me to mind Tommy whilst she went for her husband to the tavern, and I daren’t leave the child lest he should fall into the fire; but if your Reverence will hold him—­”