'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 you 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. I did not like any of them, however, as they did not exactly suit my humour; at last I found one which did. One Saturday forenoon I chanced to be in the cattle-market of a place about eighty miles from here; there I won the favour of an old gentleman who sold dickeys. He had a very shabby squad of animals, without soul or spirit; nobody would buy them, till I leaped upon their hinder ends, and by merely wriggling in a particular manner, made them caper and bound so to people's liking, that in a few hours every one of them was sold at very sufficient prices. The old gentleman was so pleased with my skill, that he took me home with him, and in a very little time into partnership. It's a good thing to have a gift, but yet better to have two. I might have got a very decent livelihood by throwing stones, but I much question whether I should ever have attained to the position in society which I now occupy, but for my knowledge of animals. I lived very comfortably with the old gentleman till he died, which he did about a fortnight after he had laid his old lady in the ground. Having no children, he left me what should remain after he had been buried decently, and the remainder was six dickeys and thirty shillings in silver. I remained in the dickey trade ten years, during which time I saved a hundred pounds. I then embarked in the horse line. One day, being in the --- market on a Saturday, I saw Mary Fulcher with a halter round her neck, led about by a man, who offered to sell her for eighteenpence. I took out the money forthwith and bought her; the man was her husband, a basket-maker, with whom she had lived several years without having any children; he was a drunken, quarrelsome fellow, and having had a dispute with her the day before, he determined to get rid of her, by putting a halter round her neck, and leading her to the cattle-market, as if she were a mare, which he had, it seems, a right to do; all women being considered mares by old English law, and, indeed, still called mares in certain counties, where genuine old English is still preserved. That same afternoon, the man who had been her husband, having got drunk in a public-house with the money which he had received for her, quarrelled with another man, and receiving a blow under the ear, fell upon the floor, and died of artiflex; and in less than three weeks I