and they screwed
chaps' nex for nex to nothink. But my bisniss was at his country-house,
where I made my first ontray into fashnabl life. I was knife, errint,
and stable-boy then, and an't ashamed to own it; for my merrits have
raised me to what I am--two livries, forty pound a year, malt-licker,
washin, silk-stocking, and wax candles--not countin wails, which is
somethink pretty considerable at OUR house, I can tell you.

I didn't stay long here, for a suckmstance happened which got me a very
different situation. A handsome young genlmn, who kep a tilbry and a
ridin horse at livry, wanted a tiger. I bid at once for the place; and,
being a neat tidy-looking lad, he took me. Bago gave me a character, and
he my first livry; proud enough I was of it, as you may fancy.

My new master had some business in the city, for he went in every
morning at ten, got out of his tilbry at the Citty Road, and had it
waiting for him at six; when, if it was summer, he spanked round into
the Park, and drove one of the neatest turnouts there. Wery proud I was
in a gold-laced hat, a drab coat and a red weskit, to sit by his side,
when he drove. I already began to ogle the gals in the carridges, and to
feel that longing for fashionabl life which I've had ever since. When
he was at the oppera, or the play, down I went to skittles, or to White
Condick Gardens; and Mr. Frederic Altamont's young man was somebody, I
warrant: to be sure there is very few man-servants at Pentonwille, the
poppylation being mostly gals of all work; and so, though only fourteen,
I was as much a man down there, as if I had been as old as Jerusalem.

But the most singular thing was, that my master, who was such a gay
chap, should live in such a hole. He had only a ground-floor in John
Street--a parlor and a bedroom. I slep over the way, and only came in
with his boots and brexfast of a morning.

The house he lodged in belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Shum. They were a poor
but proliffic couple, who had rented the place for many years; and they
and their family were squeezed in it pretty tight, I can tell you.

Shum said he had been a hofficer, and so he had. He had been a
sub-deputy assistant vice-commissary, or some such think; and, as
I heerd afterwards, had been obliged to leave on account of his
NERVOUSNESS. He was such a coward, the fact is, that he was considered
dangerous to the harmy, and sent home.

He had married a widow Buckmaster, who had been a Miss Slamcoe. She