by
a large assemblage of his friends and customers with a dinner at his own
house, which was very costly, and at which the best of wines were
sported, and after the dinner with a piece of plate estimated at fifty
guineas. He received the plate, made a neat speech of thanks, and when
the bill was called for, made another neat speech, in which he refused to
receive one farthing for the entertainment, ordering in at the same time
two dozen more of the best champagne, and sitting down amidst uproarious
applause, and cries of "You shall be no loser by it!" Nothing very
wonderful in such conduct, some people will say; I don't say there is,
nor have I any intention to endeavour to persuade the reader that the
landlord was a Carlo Boromeo; he merely gave a quid pro quo; but it is
not every person who will give you a quid pro quo. Had he been a vulgar
publican, he would have sent in a swinging bill after receiving the
plate; "but then no vulgar publican would have been presented with
plate;" perhaps not, but many a vulgar public character has been
presented with plate, whose admirers never received a quid pro quo,
except in the shape of a swinging bill.

I found my duties of distributing hay and corn, and keeping an account
thereof, anything but disagreeable, particularly after I had acquired the
good-will of the old ostler, who at first looked upon me with rather an
evil eye, considering me somewhat in the light of one who had usurped an
office which belonged to himself by the right of succession; but there
was little gall in the old fellow, and, by speaking kindly to him, never
giving myself any airs of assumption; but, above all, by frequently
reading the newspapers to him--for though passionately fond of news and
politics, he was unable to read--I soon succeeded in placing myself on
excellent terms with him. A regular character was that old ostler; he
was a Yorkshireman by birth, but had seen a great deal of life in the
vicinity of London, to which, on the death of his parents, who were very
poor people, he went at a very early age. Amongst other places where he
had served as ostler was a small inn at Hounslow, much frequented by
highwaymen, whose exploits he was fond of narrating, especially those of
Jerry Abershaw, who, he said, was a capital rider; and on hearing his
accounts of that worthy, I half regretted that the old fellow had not
been in London, and I had not formed his acquaintance about the time I
was thinki