ter gift of the gab, though not many, but he always
speaks to the purpose, and understands law thoroughly; and that's not
all. When at college, for he has been at college, he carried off
everything before him as a Latiner, and was first-rate at a game they
call matthew mattocks. I don't exactly know what it is, but I have heard
that he who is first-rate at matthew mattocks is thought more of than if
he were first-rate Latiner.

"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