This essay shows that despite the fact that 18th-century English systems of address clearly distinguished between the social ranks of patrons and broker, poets like Addison, Stepney and Congreve nevertheless addressed the famous broker Jacob Tonson, founder of the Kit Cat Club (1700), with the same terms of linguistic politeness as those used towards their patrons. Pragmatic analysis of their modal language demonstrates their linguistic acknowledgment of the power position occupied by Tonson.