I do," responds Mr. Hodge.

"Bartholomew Pinchin, of Hampstead, Esquire, eh?" I continued.

"Exactly so."

"Then," I went on, raising my voice, and giving a furious glance at my
companion, "I'll see Bartholomew Pinchin boiled, and I'll see
Bartholomew Pinchin baked, and his Esquireship to boot, before I'll be
his servant. He, a mean, skulking, pinchbeck hound! Tell him I'm meat
for his master, and that he has no service, body or lip, of mine."

"Tut, tut, you foolish lad," said Mr. Hodge, not in the least offended.
"What a wild young colt it is, and how impatient! For all your strapping
figure, now, I doubt whether you are twenty years of age."

I answered, with something like a Blush, that I was not yet seventeen.

"There it is,--there it is," the Chaplain took me, chuckling. "As I
thought. A mere boy. A very lad. Not come to years of discretion yet,
and never will, if he goes on raging in this manner. Hearken to me,
youngster. Don't be such a fool as to throw away a good chance."

"I don't see where it is yet," I observed sulkily yet sheepishly; for
there was a Good-natured air about the Chaplain that overcame me.

"But I do," he rejoined. "The good chance you have is of getting a
comfortable place, with a smart livery--"

"I won't wear a livery," I cried, in a heat. "I'll be no man's lacquey;
I'm a gentleman."

"So was Adam," retorted Mr. Hodge, "and the very first of the breed; but
he had to wear a livery of fig-leaves for all that, and so had his wife,
Eve. Come, 'tis better to don a land-jerkin, and a hat with a ribbon to
't, and be a Gentleman's Gentleman, with regular Wages and Vails, and
plenty of good Victuals every day, than to be starving and in rags about
the streets of a Flemish town."

"I'm not starving; I'm not in rags," I protested, with my Proud stomach.

"But you will be the day after to-morrow. The two things always go
together. Come, my young friend, I'll own that Bartholomew Pinchin,
Esquire, is not generous."

"Generous!" I exclaimed; "why, he's the meanest little hunks that ever
lanced a paving stone to find blood for black puddings in it. Didn't he
give me fourpence this morning for saving his life?"

"And didn't you tell him that his life wasn't worth more than a groat?"
asked the Chaplain, with a sly grin; "besides insulting him on the
question of Dutch cheese (to which he has an exquisite aversion), into
the bargain?"

"That's true," I replied, vanquished by the Parson's logi