"I do not know how I can show you my character, sir," I ventured to say, "until I have been some little time in your service." "Come, that won't do, my lad," says the landlord, "I must either see your character or out you go." Filled with misgiving, I was about to ask the landlord for an explanation of this odd demand, when it suddenly occurred to me that he wished to have it in writing, like any other master who was about to engage a servant. I had to confess that I had not a character. "Ha," says the landlord keenly. "Then why did you leave your last place?" I had to confess that I had never had a last place. "You don't mean to tell me," says the landlord, "that you have had the impidence to apply to me when you have never had no experience of the dooties?" I had to explain that such was the case, but earnestly stated that whatever I might lack in knowledge I would certainly make up in zeal. For all that it was like to have gone hard with our engagement had it not been for the intervention of the landlord's wife. It may have been that vanity which is inseparable from the male character, but it did seem to me that from the first the good woman had been disposed to regard me with favour. "Well, Joseph," says she at this critical moment, "he is a very proper looking young man, I am sure, and as honest looking as the day. I am sure he will do his best if he says he will. Besides, they are man and wife, which is a very main thing." This reference to the pair of us had the effect of diverting the worthy landlord's attention to Cynthia. No sooner did he observe her than his objections became sensibly less formidable than they had been. And I am afraid it was my little madam's _beaux yeux_ and not our qualifications and accomplishments that got us the situation. Yet even when we had been duly engaged at four pounds a year and our keep, there was like to have been a hitch. The landlady's closer inspection of us revealed the fact that although I might, as she had been good enough to say be "a very proper-looking young man," Cynthia in her opinion was vastly too fine-looking a young woman. She even went the length of describing her as "a blue-eyed slut." Whatever the force of her objections, however, as she herself was entirely responsible for the engagement of the ostler, she could hardly have gainsaid, much as she could have wished to have done so, her husband's right to engage the chambermaid. It was in this singular but fortunate fashion then that we found ourselves once more provided for. The inn being on a coaching road was not such a mean one as we had at first supposed. The host and hostess of it did not seem to be such bad people either, and as they did not except to have company in the place until later in the evening, and observing that our travels had left us in a sorry condition, they allowed us to make a rough meal, and afterwards to sit by the fire a bit.