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 bet