THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES(两个闲荡徒弟的旅行).pdf

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES
THE LAZY TOUR OF
TWO IDLE
APPRENTICES
1
THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES
CHAPTER I
In the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven,
wherein these presents bear date, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the
long, hot summer, and the long, hot work it had brought with it, ran away
from their employer. They were bound to a highly meritorious lady
(named Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, it must be
acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City as she might be.
This is the more remarkable, as there is nothing against the respectable
lady in that quarter, but quite the contrary; her family having rendered
eminent service to many famous citizens of London. It may be sufficient
to name Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor under King Richard II., at the
time of Wat Tyler's insurrection, and Sir Richard Whittington: which
latter distinguished man and magistrate was doubtless indebted to the
lady's family for the gift of his celebrated cat. There is also strong reason
to suppose that they rang the Highgate bells for him with their own hands.
The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to the mistress
from whom they had received many favours, were actuated by the low
idea of making a perfectly idle trip, in any direction. They had no
intention of going anywhere in particular; they wanted to see nothing, they
wanted to know nothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they wanted to do
nothing. They wanted only to be idle. They took to themselves (after
HOGARTH), the names of Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild;
but there was not a moral pin to choose between them, and they were both
idle in the last degree.
Between Francis and Thomas, however, there was this difference of
character: Goodchild was laboriously idle, and would take upon himself
any amount of pains and labour to assure himself that he was idle; in short,
had no better idea of idleness than