he
fellow's face, saying I would scorn to drink any more in such company;
and then I went to my horses, put them to, paid my reckoning, and drove
home.'

The postillion having related his story, to which I listened with all due
attention, mused for a moment, and then said: 'I dare say you remember
how, some time since, when old Bill had been telling us how the
Government a long time ago had done away with robbing on the highway by
putting down the public-houses and places which the highwaymen
frequented, and by sending out a good mounted police to hunt them down, I
said that it was a shame that the present Government did not employ
somewhat the same means in order to stop the proceedings of Mumbo Jumbo
and his gang now-a-days in England. Howsomever, since I have driven a
fare to a Popish rendezvous, and seen something of what is going on
there, I should conceive that the Government are justified in allowing
the gang the free exercise of their calling. Anybody is welcome to stoop
and pick up nothing or worse than nothing, and if Mumbo Jumbo's people,
after their expeditions, return to their haunts with no better plunder in
the shape of converts than what I saw going into yonder place of call, I
should say they are welcome to what they get; for if that's the kind of
rubbish they steal out of the Church of England, or any other Church, who
in his senses but would say a good riddance, and many thanks for your
trouble; at any rate, that is my opinion of the matter.'

CHAPTER XXIX

DELIBERATIONS WITH SELF--RESOLUTION--INVITATION TO DINNER--THE COMMERCIAL
TRAVELLER--THE LANDLORD'S OFFER--THE COMET WINE

It was now that I had frequent deliberations with myself. Should I
continue at the inn in my present position? I was not very much
captivated with it; there was little poetry in keeping an account of the
corn, hay, and straw which came in, and was given out, and I was fond of
poetry; moreover, there was no glory at all to be expected in doing so,
and I was fond of glory. Should I give up that situation, and remaining
at the inn, become ostler under old Bill? There was more poetry in
rubbing down horses than in keeping an account of straw, hay, and corn;
there was also some prospect of glory attached to the situation of
ostler, for the grooms and stable-boys occasionally talked of an ostler,
a great way down the road, who had been presented by some sporting
people, not with a silver vase, as our governor had be