"Well, you see, I can't tell about that nohow at present. Guess I will, if I can tho', by an' by." "But why can't you say whether you will or will not? I'll pay you for your trouble. Have you any objection to taking the horse down?" "Oh no! not at all, by no means. I've no objection nohow to obleege you, if, you see, I can find some other gentleman to look after my horses whiles I go." My companions, who had been enjoying this cross-examination of my equivocal friend, now laughed outright, and heartily did I join in the guffaw: they were to "the manner born," and it was my puzzled expression that so tickled them; to me, after the first surprise was over, the whole thing was indescribably droll. I caught instantly "another gentleman," an idler about the public-house door, who, for a shilling, found the cast shoes, and undertook to do for the horses whilst the first gentleman, of the stable, led my nag away to the forge. This was a very fair specimen, but we were to be favoured with another and a better. Mr. T. P----s, a son of the Colonel's, one of the foremost citizens of this State, was driven out in his English landau, with certain delicacies not to be expected where we dined. As the coachman, who was a servant of the old Colonel's, drew up by the inn-door, he was immediately recognised, and saluted most cordially by the landlord; who, addressing him by his name,--Jenkins, or whatever it was,--hoped he was quite well, and was "uncommon glad to see him." During this ceremony, Mr. P----s had alighted; and, in order to be particularly civil, observed with great good-humour to the landlord, "Ah, my friend, what you remember Jenkins, do you?" "Why yes, I guess I ought," replied our host of the game; "I've know'd Muster Jenkins long enough, seein' he's the _gentleman_ as used to drive old Tom P----'s coach." The fact was, the man knew the Colonel--or old Tom P----s, as he styled him--quite well, but had forgotten Mr. P----s, who had been much in Europe, and was, moreover, put quite out of his latitude by the English landau Mr. Jenkins was driving: he guessed, I suppose, that this _gentleman_ had hired a new master, and had consequently turned off the family of his old one. Odd as all this sounds, the strangest part of the matter is, that there appears no disrespect, nor churlishness of manner, conveyed or implied by this reversal of conventional distinctions. I can at least answer for the ostler, who required some other _gentleman_ as _aide_, turning out on this, and on other occasions, a most assiduously civil fellow; and as for our host, he served up the steaks of his bear as though it might never have danced to any but the "genteelest o' tunes," and himself have been its instructor.