on you in a moment;'
then with a motion of my reins, I caused the horse to rear, pressing his
sides with my heels as if I intended to make him leap. 'Stop,' said the
man, 'I'll get down, and then try if I can't serve you out.' He then got
down, and confronted me with his cudgel; he was a horrible-looking
fellow, and seemed prepared for anything. Scarcely, however, had he
dismounted, when the donkey jerked the bridle out of his hand, and
probably in revenge for the usage she had received, gave him a pair of
tremendous kicks on the hip with her hinder legs, which overturned him,
and then scampered down the road the way she had come. 'Pretty treatment
this,' said the fellow, getting up without his cudgel, and holding his
hand to his side, 'I wish I may not be lamed for life.' 'And if you be,'
said I, 'it would merely serve you right, you rascal, for trying to cheat
a poor old man out of his property by quibbling at words.' 'Rascal!'
said the fellow, 'you lie, I am no rascal; and as for quibbling with
words--suppose I did! What then? All the first people does it! The
newspapers does it! The gentlefolks that calls themselves the guides of
the popular mind does it! I'm no ignoramus. I reads the newspapers, and
knows what's what.' 'You read them to some purpose,' said I. 'Well, if
you are lamed for life, and unfitted for any active line--turn newspaper
editor; I should say you are perfectly qualified, and this day's
adventure may be the foundation of your fortune,' thereupon I turned
round and rode off. The fellow followed me with a torrent of abuse.
'Confound you!' said he--yet that was not the expression either--'I know
you; you are one of the horse-patrol, come down into the country on leave
to see your relations. Confound you, you and the like of you have
knocked my business on the head near Lunnon, and I suppose we shall have
you shortly in the country.' 'To the newspaper office,' said I, 'and
fabricate falsehoods out of flint stones;' then touching the horse with
my heels, I trotted off, and coming to the place where I had seen the old
man, I found him there, risen from the ground, and embracing his ass.

I told him that I was travelling down the road, and said, that if his way
lay in the same direction as mine, he could do no better than accompany
me for some distance, lest the fellow, who, for aught I knew, might be
hovering nigh, might catch him alone, and again get his ass from him.
After thanking me