nd white in the face, as though sick with over-work and
under-feeding) supped off a single plate of some sort of bread-berry,
some potatoes in their jackets, a small cup of coffee sweetened with
sugar-candy, and one tumbler of swipes. The landlady, her son, and the
lass aforesaid, took the same. Our meal was quite a banquet by
comparison. We had some beefsteak, not so tender as it might have been,
some of the potatoes, some cheese, an extra glass of the swipes, and
white sugar in our coffee.

You see what it is to be a gentleman--I beg your pardon, what it is to
be a pedlar. It had not before occurred to me that a pedlar was a great
man in a labourer's alehouse; but now that I had to enact the part for
an evening I found that so it was. He has in his hedge quarters somewhat
the same pre-eminency as the man who takes a private parlour in a hotel.
The more you look into it, the more infinite are the class distinctions
among men; and possibly, by a happy dispensation, there is no one at all
at the bottom of the scale; no one but can find some superiority over
somebody else, to keep up his pride withal.

We were displeased enough with our fare. Particularly the _Cigarette_,
for I tried to make believe that I was amused with the adventure, tough
beefsteak and all. According to the Lucretian maxim, our steak should
have been flavoured by the look of the other people's bread-berry. But
we did not find it so in practice. You may have a head-knowledge that
other people live more poorly than yourself, but it is not agreeable--I
was going to say, it is against the etiquette of the universe--to sit at
the same table and pick your own superior diet from among their crusts.
I had not seen such a thing done since the greedy boy at school with his
birthday cake. It was odious enough to witness, I could remember; and I
had never thought to play the part myself. But there again you see what
it is to be a pedlar.

There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country are much more
charitably disposed than their superiors in wealth. And I fancy it must
arise a great deal from the comparative indistinction of the easy and
the not so easy in these ranks. A workman or a pedlar cannot shutter
himself off from his less comfortable neighbours. If he treats himself
to a luxury he must do it in the face of a dozen who cannot. And what
should more directly lead to charitable thoughts?.... Thus the poor man,
camping out in life, sees it as it i