“That’s a nice un,” said one of the javelin-men at the door when a friend of his came out.  “Did yer ’ear that, Jimmy?  Orkins is a nice un to talk about lodgings.  Let him look to his own cirkit—­the ’Orne Cirkit—­where my brother told me as at a trial at Guildford the tenant of that there house wouldn’t pay his rent.  For why?  Because they was so pestered wi’ wermin.  And what do you think Orkins told the jury?—­He was counsel for the tenant.—­’Why,’ he says, ’gentlemen, you heard what one of the witnesses said, how that the fleas was so outrageous that they ackshally stood on the backs o’ the ’all chairs and barked at ’em as they come in.’  That’s Orkins on his own circuit; and ’ere he is finding fault with our lodgings.”

It was not long after my arrival at Lincoln, on the first occasion of my visiting that drowsy old ecclesiastical city, that I was waited upon, first by one benevolent body of gentlemen, and then another, all philanthropists seeking subscriptions for charitable objects.

One bitterly cold morning I was standing in my robes with my back to the fire at my lodgings, waiting to step into the carriage on my way to court, when a very polite gentleman, who headed quite a body of other polite gentlemen, asked “if his lordship would do them the honour of receiving a deputation from the L. and B. Skating Club.”  I assented—­nothing would give me more pleasure; and in filed the deputation, arranging themselves, hats in hand, round me in a semicircle.

“We have the honour, my lord, to call upon your lordship in pursuance of a resolution passed last night at a special meeting of our club—­”

“What is the name of your club?”

“The L. and B. Skating Club, my lord.”

“What is its object?”

“Our object, my lord?”

“No, the object of your society.  I can guess your object.”

The leader answered with a smile of the greatest satisfaction,—­

“Er—­skating, my lord.”

“Your own amusement?”

The head of the deputation bowed.

“Do you want me to skate?”

“No, my lord; but we take the liberty of asking your lordship to kindly support our club with a subscription.”

“When I see,” I replied, “so much poverty and misery around me which needs actual relief, and when I look at this inclement weather and think how these poor creatures must suffer from the cold, it seems to me that they are the people who should apply to those who have anything to bestow in charity; not those who are the only people, as it would appear, who can take pleasure in this excruciating weather.  See if your club cannot do something for these poor sufferers instead of collecting merely for your own personal amusement; contribute to their necessities, and then come and see me again.  I shall be here till Monday.”

The head of the deputation stared, but it did not lose its presence of mind or forget its duty.  The deputation made a little speech “thanking me heartily for the kind manner in which they had been received.”