* * *

"I declare I never knew a _flatter_ companion than yourself," said Tom of
Finsbury, the other evening, to the lion of Lambeth. "Thank you, Tom,"
replied the latter; "but all the world knows that you're a _flatter-er_."
Tom, in nautical phrase, swore, if he ever came athwart his _Hawes_, that
he would return the compliment with interest.

* * * * *

MY FRIEND TOM.

--"Here, methinks,
Truth wants no ornament."--ROGERS.

We have the happiness to know a gentleman of the name of Tom, who
officiates in the capacity of ostler. We have enjoyed a long acquaintance
with him--we mean an acquaintance a long way off--i.e. from the window of
our dormitory, which overlooks A--s--n's stables. We believe we are the
first of our family, for some years, who has not kept a horse; and we
derive a melancholy gratification in gazing for hours, from our lonely
height, at the zoological possessions of more favoured mortals.

"The horse is a noble animal," as a gentleman once wittily observed, when
he found himself, for the first time in his life, in a position to make
love; and we beg leave to repeat the remark--"the horse is a noble
animal," whether we consider him in his usefulness or in his beauty;
whether caparisoned in the _chamfrein_ and _demi-peake_ of the chivalry of
olden times, or scarcely fettered and surmounted by the snaffle and
hog-skin of the present; whether he excites our envy when bounding over
the sandy deserts of Arabia, or awakens our sympathies when drawing sand
from Hampstead and the parts adjacent; whether we see him as romance
pictures him, foaming in the lists, or bearing, "through flood and field,"
the brave, the beautiful, and the benighted; or, as we know him in
reality, the companion of our pleasures, the slave of our necessities, the
dislocator of our necks, or one of the performers at our funeral;
whether--but we are not drawing a "bill in Chancery."

With such impressions in favour of the horse, we have ever felt a deep
anxiety about those to whom his conduct and comfort are confided.

The breeder--we envy.
The breaker--we pity.
The owner--we esteem.
The groom--we respect.
AND
The ostler--we pay.

Do not suppose that we wish to cast a slur upon the latter personage, but
it is too much to require that he who keeps a caravansera should look upon
every wayfarer as a brother. It is thus with the ostler: _his_ fe