d
pipe between us, saying in English, scarcely intelligible, 'Let there be
no dispute! As for myself, I am very much obliged to the young man of
Horncastle for his interruption, though he has told me that one of his
dirty townsmen called me "Long-stockings." By Isten! there is more
learning in what he has just said, than in all the verdammt English
histories of Thor and Tzernebock I ever read.'

'I care nothing for his learning,' said the jockey. 'I consider myself
as good a man as he, for all his learning; so stand out of the way, Mr.
Sixfoot-eleven, or--'

'I shall do no such thing,' said the Hungarian. 'I wonder you are not
ashamed of yourself. You ask young man to drink champagne with you, you
make him dronk, he interrupt you with very good sense; he ask your
pardon, yet you not--'

'Well,' said the jockey, 'I am satisfied. I am rather a short-tempered
person, but I bear no malice. He is, as you say, drinking my wine, and
has perhaps taken a drop too much, not being used to such high liquor;
but one doesn't like to be put out of one's tale, more especially when
one was about to moralize, do you see, oneself, and to show off what
little learning one has. However, I bears no malice. Here is a hand to
each of you: we'll take another glass each, and think no more about it.'

The jockey having shaken both of our hands, and filled our glasses and
his own with what champagne remained in the bottle, put on his coat, sat
down, and resumed his pipe and story.

'Where was I? Oh, roaming about the country with Hopping Ned and Biting
Giles. Those were happy days, and a merry and prosperous life we led.
However, nothing continues under the sun in the same state in which it
begins, and our firm was soon destined to undergo a change. We came to a
village where there was a very high church steeple, and in a little time
my comrades induced a crowd of people to go and see me display my gift by
flinging stones above the heads of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who
stood at the four corners on the top, carved in stone. The parson,
seeing the crowd, came waddling out of his rectory to see what was going
on. After I had flung up the stones, letting them fall just were I
liked--and one, I remember, fell on the head of Mark, where I dare say it
remains to the present day--the parson, who was one of the description of
people called philosophers, held up his hand, and asked me to let the
next stone I flung up fall into it.