I relax my mind
in this way, though you would hardly think it the proper place for a
Balliol man, while that overfed brute up at the Hall can drive out with
a pair of two-hundred-guinea bays, sir. Fancy a gentleman and a scholar
being in this company, sir! Now Jones, the landlord there, is a good man
in his way--oh, no thanks Jones; it is not a compliment!--and I'd like
to see the man who dared say that I'm not speaking the truth, for I used
to put my hands up like a good one when we were boys at the old
'varsity, sir. Jones, this gentleman would like something; and I don't
mind taking a double dose of Glenlivat with a brother-scholar and a
gentleman like myself." So the mawkish creature maunders on until one's
gorge rises; but the stolid carters, the idle labourers, the shoemaker
from the shop round the corner, admire his eloquence, and enjoy the
luxury of pitying a parson and an aristocrat. How very numerous are the
representatives of this type, and how unspeakably odious they are! This
foul weed in dirty clothing assumes the pose of a bishop; he swears at
the landlord, he patronizes the shoemaker--who is his superior in all
ways--he airs the feeble remnants of his Latin grammar and his stock
quotations.
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