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Hogarth's Works, with life and anecdotal descriptions of his pictures. Volume 1 (of 3)

Note 156 — HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED. (continued 2)

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When a gentleman, whose industry and integrity have raised him to the rank of an Alderman of London, was apprentice, he one Sunday afternoon took a walk with several of his friends to Islington. Considering smoking as a manly accomplishment, he put a pipe in his mouth. A respectable citizen who knew his master, meeting him in the fields, with a grave face accosted him as follows: "How now, Tom! smoking tobacco! pray who was your teacher? If you mean to be rich, unlearn it as fast as you can, for I never knew a man worth a guinea who stuck a pipe in his mouth before he was twenty." "The d—l you did not," replied the boy, "then I will never smoke another." He dashed his clay tube to the ground, and adhered to his resolution.

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