“Well, the chap that I’m talking about, not only came out first-rate Latiner, but first-rate at matthew mattocks too; doing, in fact, as I am told by those who knows, for I was never at college myself, what no one had ever done before.  Well, he makes his appearance at our circuit, does very well, of course, but he has a somewhat high front, as becomes an honest man, and one who has beat every one at Latin and matthew mattocks; and one who can speak first-rate law and sense;—­but see now, the cove with the grin, who has like myself never been at college; knows nothing of Latin, or matthew mattocks, and has no particular gift of the gab, has two briefs for his one, and I suppose very properly, for that grin of his curries favour with the juries; and mark me, that grin of his will enable him to beat the other in the long run.  We all know what all barrister coves looks forward to—­a seat on the hop sack.  Well, I’ll bet a bull to fivepence, that the grinner gets upon it, and the snarler doesn’t; at any rate, that he gets there first.  I calls my cove—­for he is my cove—­a snarler; because your first-rates at matthew mattocks are called snarlers, and for no other reason; for the chap, though with a high front, is a good chap, and once drank a glass of ale with me, after buying an animal out of my stable.  I have often thought it a pity he wasn’t born with a grin on his face like the son of Ugly Moses.  It is true he would scarcely then have been an out and outer at Latin and matthew mattocks, but what need of either to a chap born with a grin?  Talk of being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth! give me a cove born with a grin on his face—­a much better endowment.

“I will now shorten my history as much as I can, for we have talked as much as folks do during a whole night in the Commons’ House, though, of course, not with so much learning, or so much to the purpose, because—­why?  They are in the House of Commons, and we in a public room of an inn at Horncastle.  The goodness of the ale, do ye see, never depending on what it is made of, oh, no! but on the fashion and appearance of the jug in which it is served up.  After being turned out of the firm, I got my living in two or three honest ways, which I shall not trouble you with describing.  I did not like any of them, however, as they did not exactly suit my humour; at last I found one which did.  One Saturday afternoon, I chanced to be in the cattle-market of a place about eighty miles from here; there I won the favour of an old gentleman who sold dickeys.  He had a very shabby squad of animals, without soul or spirit; nobody would buy them, till I leaped upon their hinder ends, and by merely wriggling in a particular manner, made them caper and bound so to people’s liking, that in a few hours every one of them was sold at very sufficient prices.  The old gentleman was so pleased with my skill, that he took me home with him, and in a very little time into partnership.  It’s