So Ned hopped off, and Giles ran after him, without making any gathering, and I was led to Bridewell, my mittimus following at the end of a week, the parson's hand not permitting him to write before that time.In the Bridewell Iremained a month, when, being dismissed, I went in quest of my companions, whom, after some time, I found up, but they refused to keep my company any longer; telling me that I was a dangerous character, likely to bring them more trouble than profit; they had, moreover, filled up my place.Going into a cottage to ask for a drink of water, they saw a country fellow making faces to amuse his children; the faces were so wonderful that Hopping Ned and Biting Giles at once proposed taking him into partnership, and the man - who was a fellow not very fond of work - after a little entreaty, went away with them.I saw him exhibit his gift, and couldn't blame the others for preferring him to me; he was a proper ugly fellow at all times, but when he made faces his countenance was like nothing human.He was called Ugly Moses.I was so amazed at his faces, that though poor myself I gave him sixpence, which I have never grudged to this day, for I never saw anything like them.The firm throve wonderfully after he had been admitted into it.He died some little time ago, keeper of a public-house, which he had been enabled to take from the profits of his faces.A son of his, one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one.He has his gift - he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and Biting Giles, but that grin of his caused him to be noticed by a much greater person than either; an attorney observing it took a liking to the lad, and prophesied that he would some day be heard of in the world;and in order to give him the first lift, took him into his office, at first to light fires and do such kind of work, and after a little time taught him to write, then promoted him to a desk, articled him afterwards, and being unmarried, and without children, left him what he had when he died.The young fellow, after practising at the law some time, went to the bar, where, in a few years, helped on by his grin, for he had nothing else to recommend him, he became, as I said before, a rising barrister.He comes our circuit, and Ioccasionally employ him, when I am obliged to go to law about such a thing as an unsound horse.He generally brings me through - or rather that grin of his does - and yet I don't like the fellow, confound him, but I'm an oddity - no, the one I like, and whom I generally employ, is a fellow quite different, a bluff sturdy dog, with no grin on his face, but with a look that seems to say I am an honest man, and what cares I for any one? And an honest man he is, and something more.I have known coves with a better gift of the gab, though not many, but he always speaks to the purpose, and understands law thoroughly; and that's not all.When at college, for he has been at college, he carried off everything before him as a Latiner, and was first-rate at a game they call matthew mattocks.I don't exactly know what it is, but I have heard that he who is first-rate at matthew mattocks is thought more of than if he were first-rate Latiner.
"Well, the chap that I'm talking about, not only came out first-rate Latiner, but first-rate at matthew mattocks too;doing, in fact, as I am told by those who knows, for I was never at college myself, what no one had ever done before.
Well, he makes his appearance at our circuit, does very well, of course, but he has a somewhat high front, as becomes an honest man, and one who has beat every one at Latin and matthew mattocks; and one who can speak first-rate law and sense; - but see now, the cove with the grin, who has like myself never been at college; knows nothing of Latin, or matthew mattocks, and has no particular gift of the gab, has two briefs for his one, and I suppose very properly, for that grin of his curries favour with the juries; and mark me, that grin of his will enable him to beat the other in the long run.We all know what all barrister coves looks forward to -a seat on the hop sack.Well, I'll bet a bull to fivepence, that the grinner gets upon it, and the snarler doesn't; at any rate, that he gets there first.I calls my cove - for he is my cove - a snarler; because your first-rates at matthew mattocks are called snarlers, and for no other reason; for the chap, though with a high front, is a good chap, and once drank a glass of ale with me, after buying an animal out of my stable.I have often thought it a pity he wasn't born with a grin on his face like the son of Ugly MOSES.It is true he would scarcely then have been an out and outer at Latin and matthew mattocks, but what need of either to a chap born with a grin? Talk of being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth! give me a cove born with a grin on his face - a much better endowment.
"I will now shorten my history as much as I can, for we have talked as much as folks do during a whole night in the Commons' House, though, of course, not with so much learning, or so much to the purpose, because - why? They are in the House of Commons, and we in a public room of an inn at Horncastle.The goodness of the ale, do ye see, never depending on what it is made of, oh, no! but on the fashion and appearance of the jug in which it is served up.After being turned out of the firm, I got my living in two or three honest ways, which I shall not trouble you with describing.
