“I care nothing for his learning,” said the jockey.  “I consider myself as good a man as he, for all his learning; so stand out of the way, Mr. Sixfooteleven, or—­”

“I shall do no such thing,” said the Hungarian.  “I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself.  You ask a young man to drink champagne with you, you make him dronk, he interrupt you with very good sense; he ask your pardon, yet you not—­”

“Well,” said the jockey, “I am satisfied.  I am rather a short-tempered person, but I bear no malice.  He is, as you say, drinking my wine, and has perhaps taken a drop too much, not being used to such high liquor; but one doesn’t like to be put out of one’s tale, more especially when one was about to moralize, do you see, oneself, and to show off what little learning one has.  However, I bears no malice.  Here is a hand to each of you; we’ll take another glass each, and think no more about it.”

The jockey having shaken both of our hands, and filled our glasses and his own with what champagne remained in the bottle, put on his coat, sat down, and resumed his pipe and story.

“Where was I?  Oh, roaming about the country with Hopping Ned and Biting Giles.  Those were happy days, and a merry and prosperous life we led.  However, nothing continues under the sun in the same state in which it begins, and our firm was soon destined to undergo a change.  We came to a village where there was a very high church steeple, and in a little time my comrades induced a crowd of people to go and see me display my gift by flinging stones above the heads of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who stood at the four corners on the top, carved in stone.  The parson, seeing the crowd, came waddling out of his rectory to see what was going on.  After I had flung up the stones, letting them fall just where I liked—­and one, I remember, fell on the head of Mark, where I dare say it remains to the present day—­the parson, who was one of the description of people called philosophers, held up his hand, and asked me to let the next stone I flung up fall upon it.  He wished, do you see, to know with what weight the stone would fall down, and talked something about gravitation—­a word which I could never understand to the present day, save that it turned out a grave matter to me.  I, like a silly fellow myself, must needs consent, and, flinging the stone up to a vast height, contrived so that it fell into the parson’s hand, which it cut dreadfully.  The parson flew into a great rage, more particularly as everybody laughed at him, and, being a magistrate, ordered his clerk, who was likewise constable, to conduct me to prison as a rogue and vagabond, telling my comrades that if they did not take themselves off, he would serve them in the same manner.  So Ned hopped off, and Giles ran after him, without making any gathering, and I was led to Bridewell, my mittimus following at the end of a week, the parson’s hand not permitting him to write before that time.