The Adventures of Roderick Random

Strap’s Ecstasy Over the Windfall

As the narrator leaves with his winnings, he treads on the toes of a tall, raw-boned fellow who roars out a tremendous oath and demands gentlemanly satisfaction; the narrator humbles himself at first but, provoked by scandalous names, returns the abuse and challenges the man to the piazzas, where the fellow, his indignation cooling, refuses and retires muttering. He returns home to find Strap, who has sat up all night in tears, waiting in the attitude of a condemned criminal; the narrator assumes a sullen look and bids him fetch water to wash, then spreads his entire stock upon the table. Strap, struck as if entranced, rubs his eyes and cries out upon the vast treasure, and on hearing the story of the gaming-table success, dances about the room in an ecstasy, exclaiming “God be praised!—a white stone!—God be praised!—a white stone!” so wildly that the narrator, fearing his intellects are disordered, lays violent hands upon him and fixes him to a settee. Restored, Strap explains that he alludes to the Roman Dies fasti, when fortunate days were marked with a white stone.

Mrs. Gawky’s Remorseful Plea for Assistance

As the narrator is about to go abroad, a young woman of shabby, decayed appearance is shown up to his room; after half a dozen curtsies she begins to sob and gives her name as Gawky, whereupon he recognises Miss Lavement, the first occasion of his misfortunes. Moved by her distress, he inquires into her situation, and she falls upon her knees, imploring forgiveness and protesting that she was forced, against her inclination, into the hellish conspiracy against him by the entreaties of her husband, who was afterwards renounced by his father for the marriage, unable to support a family on his pay, and went with the regiment to Germany, where he was broken for misbehaviour at the battle of Dettingen, since which she has heard no tidings of him. She further relates that she bore a child four months after marriage, that the infant died soon after, that her parents turned her out of doors, and that she has since subsisted miserably on the extorted charity of friends now quite tired of giving; having no other resource, she has fled for succour even to him, of all mankind least obliged to assist her.