"Sir," says I warmly, "I am grateful to you. You can scarcely know how an example such as yours helps a drowning man to keep his head above the flood that is like to overwhelm him. But I think I owe it to myself to lessen the weight of Sir Thomas's responsibilities, by assuring you that I am innocent of the horrid crime with which I am charged. The poor fellow came by his end in a fair fight; and therefore if you can only overlook the sums I owe my creditors, you may relieve your scruples." "I am more than glad of these assurances," says the justice. "A great load is taken off my mind." "On the contrary," says Mr. Fielding, "they make not a farthingworth of difference to me. I care not if you are the most long-suffering peer that ever went to the dogs, or if you are the greatest villain that ever tried to dodge the gallows. What's the odds? You are a proper enough fellow for all rational purposes. Certainly I would not choose to meet Mr. Jack Sheppard in a lonely lane on a dark night, but I would as willingly drink a bottle with a lad of his mettle just as well as with another. If a man shall bear himself gallantly at table, with a merry courage and a kindling eye, who am I that shall ask uncivil questions of him?" Whatever Mr. Henry Fielding's philosophy, and it seemed to have a savour of that of the late eminent Sir John Falstaff, Knight, he was a fine merry companion, who asked no better of the hour and the company in which he sat than that they should consort with his humour. After a while his wit, his gallant spirits, and his brave bearing before the bottle did not fail of their effect upon the justice too. That staid and pompous fellow resisted them for a time, but as first one and then another bottle was numbered among the slain, and our tongues grew looser as our brains grew warm, he fell at last from his high estate and was seduced into a course that ill consisted with his sentiments. When he had accepted several glasses from Mr. Fielding's own fair hands he began to grow rather thicker in his speech, weighed his words less, and showed several signs of having departed from his usual habit. "You can see," says Mr. Fielding, winking at me, "that our gallant Tommie hath been nurtured on cinnamon-water and Dr. Akenside's sermons. I should say that four glasses are about the limit of him; five, and he goes over the verge."