rejoined
the sergeant, "but I could not help laughing at the conceit of the
horse-dealer, to prevent me from going to a place where his theft of
the horse would be discovered: I wished I had attended to his caution,
as the sale to me was not regular, and I was left to make the best
terms I could with the landlord." What they were he kept to himself.

Fielding was a contemporary member of the home-circuit, with Sergeant
Bond and myself. In the performance of the duties of conviviality,
over which the learned sergeant, as head of the circuit, presided, he
found in Fielding a powerful auxiliary. He was the son of the author
of _Tom Jones_, and inherited to a great degree the wit and talents of
his father.

As a companion, Fielding was invariably pleasant and inimitably
entertaining. His conversation abounded with anecdotes, of which he
had an inexhaustible fund: his great stock was of Irish stories which
he gave with great truth and humour.

I have repeatedly heard him say, that the lowest class of the Irish
had more native humour than any other body of people in the same rank
in life. He would then relate, in proof of it, the event of a bet
which was made on the subject at one of the club-houses in St. James's
Street, which then was crowded with English and Irish chairmen, and
which was to be decided by the reply of one of each country to the
same question. It was, "If you were put naked on the top of St.
Paul's, what would you be like?" The English chairman was first called
in, and the question being put to him, he ran sulky, and refused to
give any direct answer, saying they were making fun of him. Pat was
then introduced, and the question being propounded to him: "What
should I be like?" says he; "why, like to get could, to be sure, your
honours." "This," says he, "they call mother wit; and the most
illiterate have a quickness in parrying the effect of a question by an
evasive answer. I recollect hearing Sir John Fielding giving an
instance of this, in the case of an Irish fellow who was brought
before him when sitting as a magistrate at Bow Street. He was desired
to give some account of himself, and where he came from. Wishing to
pass for an Englishman, he said he came from Chester. This he
pronounced with a very rich brogue, which caught the ears of Sir John.
'Why, were you ever in Chester?' says he. 'To be sure, I was,' said
Pat; '_wasn't I born there?_' 'How dare you,' said Sir John Fielding,
'with that brogue,