Works - 1908 Author:Daniel Defoe Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: never fails to find an opportunity for the wickedness he invites to. It was one evening that I was in the garden, with his two younger sisters and himself, when ... more »he found means to convey a note into my hand, by which he told me that he would tomorrow desire me publicly to go of an errand for him, and that I should see him somewhere by the way. Accordingly, after dinner, he very gravely says to me, his sisters being all by, " Mrs. Betty, I must ask a favour of you." " What rs that ? " says the second sister. " Nay, sister," says he very gravely, " if you can't spare Mrs. Betty to-day, any other time will do." Yes, they said, they could spare her well enough; and the sister begged pardon for asking. "Well, but," says the eldest sister, "you must tell Mrs. Betty what it is; if it be any private business that we must not hear, you may call her out. There she is." " Why, sister," says the gentleman very gravely, " what do you mean ? I only desire her to go into the High Street" (and then he pulls out a turnover), " to such a shop;" and then he tells them a long story of two fine neckcloths he had bid money for, and he wanted to have me go and make an errand to buy a neck to that turnover that he showed, and if they would not take my money for the neckcloths, to bid a shilling more, and haggle with them; and then he made more errands, and so continued to have such petty business to do, that I should be sure to stay a good while. When he had given me my errands, he told them a long story of a visit he was going to make to a family they all knew, and where was to be such- and-such gentlemen, and very formally asked his sisters to go with him, and they as formally excused themselves, because of company that they had notice was to come and visit them that afternoon ; all which, by the ...« less