g me in something handsome--comes off next
Wednesday at --- have ventured ten five-pound notes--shouldn't say
ventured either--run no risk at all, because why? I know my birds."
About ten days after this harangue, I called again at about three o'clock
one afternoon. The landlord was seated on a bench by a table in the
common room, which was entirely empty; he was neither smoking nor
drinking, but sat with his arms folded, and his head hanging down over
his breast. At the sound of my step he looked up; "Ah," said he, "I am
glad you are come, I was just thinking about you". "Thank you," said I;
"it was very kind of you, especially at a time like this, when your mind
must be full of your good fortune. Allow me to congratulate you on the
sums of money you won by the main of cocks at --- I hope you brought it
all safe home." "Safe home," said the landlord; "I brought myself safe
home, and that was all; came home without a shilling, regularly done,
cleaned out." "I am sorry for that," said I; "but after you had won the
money, you ought to have been satisfied, and not risked it again--how did
you lose it? I hope not by the pea and thimble." "Pea and thimble,"
said the landlord, "not I; those confounded cocks left me nothing to lose
by the pea and thimble." "Dear me," said I; "I thought that you knew
your birds." "Well, so I did," said the landlord; "I knew the birds to
be good birds, and so they proved, and would have won if better birds had
not been brought against them, of which I knew nothing, and so do you see
I am done, regularly done." "Well," said I, "don't be cast down; there
is one thing of which the cocks by their misfortune cannot deprive
you--your reputation; make the most of that, give up cock-fighting, and
be content with the custom of your house, of which you will always have
plenty, as long as you are the wonder and glory of the neighbourhood."

The landlord struck the table before him violently with his fist.
"Confound my reputation!" said he. "No reputation that I have will be
satisfaction to my brewer for the seventy pounds I owe him. Reputation
won't pass for the current coin of this here realm; and let me tell you,
that if it a'n't backed by some of it, it a'n't a bit better than rotten
cabbage, as I have found. Only three weeks since I was, as I told you,
the wonder and glory of the neighbourhood; and people used to come and
look at me, and worship me, but as soon as it began to be whispered