“Humph,” said J——­, casting his eyes over the bill as it lay by the side of his plate, while he kept pegging away at the contents of the neighbouring dish—­“pretty reasonable, I think—­dinners, five shillings, that’s half a crown each; beds, two shillings each; breakfasts, one and ninepence each, that’s cheap for a fork breakfast; but, I say, you had a pint of sherry after I left you last night, and PALE sherry too!  How could you be such an egreggorus (egregious) ass!  That’s so like you young chaps, not to know that the only difference between pale and brown sherry is, that one has more of the pumpaganus aqua in it than the other.  You should have made it pale yourself, man.  But look there.  Wot a go!”

Our attention was attracted to a youth in spectacles, dressed in a rich plum-coloured coat, on the outside of a dingy-looking, big-headed, brown nag, which he was flogging and cramming along the public walk in front of the “Dolphin,” in the most original and ludicrous manner.  We presently recognised him as one of our fellow-passengers of the previous day, respecting whom Jorrocks and I had had a dispute as to whether he was a Frenchman or a German.  His equestrian performances decided the point.  I never in all my life witnessed such an exhibition, nor one in which the performer evinced such self-complacency.  Whether he had ever been on horseback before or not I can’t tell, but the way in which he went to work, using the bridle as a sort of rattle to frighten the horse forward, the way in which he shook the reins, threw his arms about, and belaboured the poor devil of an animal in order to get him into a canter (the horse of course turning away every time he saw the blow coming), and the free, unrestrained liberty he gave to his head, surpassed everything of the sort I ever saw, and considerably endangered the lives of several of His Majesty’s lieges that happened to be passing.  Instead of getting out of their way, Frenchmanlike, he seemed to think everything should give way to an equestrian; and I saw him scatter a party of ladies like a covey of partridges, by riding slap amongst them, and not even making the slightest apology or obeisance for the rudeness.  There he kept, cantering (or cantering as much as he could induce the poor rip to do) from one end of the town to the other, conceiving, I make not the slightest doubt, that he was looked upon with eyes of admiration by the beholders.  He soon created no little sensation, and before he was done a crowd had collected near the Pier Hotel, to see him get his horse past (it being a Pier Hotel nag) each time; and I heard a primitive sort of postman, who was delivering the few letters that arrive in the place, out of a fish-basket, declare “that he would sooner kill a horse than lend it to such a chap.”  Having fretted his hour away, the owner claimed the horse, and Monsieur was dismounted.