sturdy dog, with no grin on his face, but
with a look which 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 better 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 know exactly 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 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 that
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, t