The Romany Rye eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 596 pages of information about The Romany Rye.

The Romany Rye eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 596 pages of information about The Romany Rye.
In the Bridewell I remained a month, when, being dismissed, I went in quest of my companions, whom, after some time, I found up, but they refused to keep my company any longer; telling me that I was a dangerous character, likely to bring them more trouble than profit; they had, moreover, filled up my place.  Going into a cottage to ask for a drink of water, they saw a country fellow making faces to amuse his children; the faces were so wonderful that Hopping Ned and Biting Giles at once proposed taking him into partnership, and the man—­ who was a fellow not very fond of work—­after a little entreaty, went away with them.  I saw him exhibit his gift, and couldn’t blame the others for preferring him to me; he was a proper ugly fellow at all times, but when he made faces his countenance was like nothing human.  He was called Ugly Moses.  I was so amazed at his faces, that though poor myself I gave him sixpence, which I have never grudged to this day, for I never saw anything like them.  The firm throve wonderfully after he had been admitted into it.  He died some little time ago, keeper of a public-house, which he had been enabled to take from the profits of his faces.  A son of his, one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one.  He has his gift—­he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and Biting Giles, but that grin of his caused him to be noticed by a much greater person than either; an attorney observing it took a liking to the lad, and prophesied that he would some day be heard of in the world; and in order to give him the first lift, took him into his office, at first to light fires and do such kind of work, and after a little time taught him to write, then promoted him to a desk, articled him afterwards, and being unmarried, and without children, left him what he had when he died.  The young fellow, after practising at the law some time, went to the bar, where, in a few years, helped on by his grin, for he had nothing else to recommend him, he became, as I said before, a rising barrister.  He comes our circuit, and I occasionally employ him, when I am obliged to go to law about such a thing as an unsound horse.  He generally brings me through—­or rather that grin of his does—­and yet I don’t like the fellow, confound him, but I’m an oddity—­no, the one I like, and whom I generally employ, is a fellow quite different, a bluff sturdy dog, with no grin on his face, but with a look that seems to say I am an honest man, and what cares I for any one?  And an honest man he is, and something more.  I have known coves with a better gift of the gab, though not many, but he always speaks to the purpose, and understands law thoroughly; and that’s not all.  When at college, for he has been at college, he carried off everything before him as a Latiner, and was first-rate at a game they call matthew mattocks.  I don’t exactly know what it is, but I have heard that he who is first-rate at matthew mattocks is thought more of than if he were first-rate Latiner.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Romany Rye from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.