mouth and tankard in hand, presiding at the
bowling-green of the Black Lion, the acknowledged and revered umpire--
cherished by mine host, and referred to by the players. I write this
life for instruction. Gentlemen ushers, look to it--be ambitious--learn
the guitar, and make your mouths water with ideas of prospective
tankards of ale, and odoriferous pipes.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

RALPH GROWETH EGREGIOUSLY MODEST, AND BOASTETH IMMODERATELY, UNTIL HE IS
BEATEN BY ONE WITH ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE; WITH SOMETHING TOUCHING THE
FEATS OF THE MAN WITHOUT FEET.

I find myself in a dilemma. My modesty (?) is at variance with my love
of verity. Oh, the inconvenience of that little pronoun, I! Would that
I had in the first instance imitated the wily conduct of the bald-pated
invader of Britain. How complacently might I not then have vaunted in
the beginning, have caracoled through the middle, and glorified myself
at the conclusion of this my autobiography! What a monstrous piece of
braggadocio would not Caesar's Commentaries have been, had he used the
first instead of the third person singular! How intolerable would have
been the presumption of his Thrasonical, "I thrashed the Helvetians--I
subjugated the Germans--I utterly routed the Gauls--I defeated the
painted Britons!" And, on the contrary--for I like to place heroes side
by side--how decorously and ingeniously might I not have written, "Ralph
Rattlin blackened Master Simpkin's left eye--Ralph Rattlin led on the
attack upon Farmer Russel's orchard, and Ralph Rattlin fought three
rounds, with no considerable disadvantage, with the long-legged pieman."
Alas! I cannot even shelter myself under the mistiness of the
peremptory _we_. I have made a great mistake. But I have this
consolation, in common with other great men, that, for our mistake, the
public will assuredly suffer more than ourselves. Many a choice
adventure, of which I was the hero, must be suppressed. _I_ should
blush myself black in the face to say what _he_ would relate with a very
quiet smile of self-satisfaction. However, as regrets are quite
unavailing, unless, like the undertaker's, they are paid for, I shall
exclaim, with the French soldier, who found his long military queue in
the hands of a pursuing English sailor, "Chivalry of the world,
_toujours en avant_!"

I now began to commit the sin of much verse, and, consequently, acquired
in the neighbouring village much notice. No chastising blow