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Royal Tunbridge Wells
another damned lie for any other man on the face of the earth."
How Nash lived during these years is another problem, but this may be met with the surmise, either that his father continued to make him an allowance, or that his father died and left him a small capital that slowly but surely— and perhaps not so very slowly—he dissipated. Certainly what benefit he derived from the direction of the Temple pageant was purely social: it seems to have brought him into touch with the more fashionable class of men about town, an opportunity that doubtless he felt amply repaid him for his labours. To some extent, perhaps, he eked out his income by means of his wits, which apparently served him passing well, since there is no record of his ever having done a day's work before he went to Bath.
It is said he often made money through winning some of those extraordinary wagers that were then so popular. He is said to have acquired a small fortune, and greatly to have enhanced his reputation, by riding, attired in the costume of Lady Godiva, a cow through a village. On another occasion, when he had lost his last penny at the York races, his friends 136 |
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