ak, by which I found that the Bencher
had been diverting them with a story of Jack Ogle.

I had no sooner taken my seat, but Sir Jeoffery, to show his good will
towards me, gave me a pipe of his own tobacco, and stirred up the
fire. I look upon it as a point of morality, to be obliged by those who
endeavour to oblige me; and therefore, in requital for his kindness, and
to set the conversation a-going, I took the best occasion I could to put
him upon telling us the story of old Gantlett, which he always does
with very particular concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for
several generations, describing his diet and manner of life, with his
several battles, and particularly that in which he fell. This Gantlett
was a game-cock, upon whose head the knight, in his youth, had won five
hundred pounds, and lost two thousand. This naturally set the Major upon
the account of Edge-hill fight, and ended in a duel of Jack Ogle's.

Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, though it was
the same he had heard every night for these twenty years, and upon all
occasions winked upon his nephew to mind what passed.

This may suffice to give the world a taste of our innocent conversation,
which we spun out till about ten of the clock, when my maid came with a
lantern to light me home. I could not but reflect with myself, as I was
going out, upon the talkative humour of old men, and the little figure
which that part of life makes in one who cannot employ this natural
propensity in discourses which would make him venerable. I must own,
it makes me very melancholy in company, when I hear a young man begin a
story; and have often observed, that one of a quarter of an hour long in
a man of five-and-twenty, gathers circumstances every time he tells it,
till it grows into a long Canterbury tale of two hours by that time he
is three-score.

The only way of avoiding such a trifling and frivolous old age is to lay
up in our way to it such stores of knowledge and observation as may make
us useful and agreeable in our declining years. The mind of man in
a long life will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and will
consequently discharge itself in something impertinent or improving. For
which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous than an old trifling
story-teller, so there is nothing more venerable than one who has turned
his experience to the entertainment and advantage of mankind.

In short, we, who are in the last