“Well, sir,” said the damsel, “if there is anything distressing you have only to thank your acquaintance who chooses to call his mughouse by the name of a respectable hotel, for I would have you know that this is an hotel, and kept by a respectable and religious man, and not kept by—. However, I scorn to say more, especially as I might be misinterpreted. Sir, there’s your pint and chop, and if you wish for anything else you can ring. Envious, indeed, of such. Marry come up!” and with a toss of her head, higher than any she had hitherto given, she bounced out of the room. Here was a pretty affair! I had entered the house and ordered the chop and pint in the belief that by so doing I was patronising the poet, and lo, I was not in the poet’s house, and my order would benefit a person for whom, however respectable and religious, I cared not one rush. Moreover, the pint which I had ordered appeared in the guise not of ale, which I am fond of, but of sherry, for which I have always entertained a sovereign contempt, as a silly, sickly compound, the use of which will transform a nation, however bold and warlike by nature, into a race of sketchers, scribblers, and punsters, in fact into what Englishmen are at the present day. But who was to blame? Why, who but the poet and myself? The poet ought to have told me that there were two houses in L— bearing the sign of the — Arms, and that I must fight shy of the hotel and steer for the pot-house, and when I gave the order I certainly ought to have been a little more explicit; when I said a pint, I ought to have added—of ale. Sententiousness is a fine thing sometimes, but not always. By being sententious here, I got sherry, which I dislike, instead of ale which I like, and should have to pay more for what was disagreeable than I should have had to pay for what was agreeable. Yet I had merely echoed the poet’s words in calling for a pint and chop, so after all the poet was to blame for both mistakes. But perhaps he meant that I should drink sherry at his house, and when he advised me to call for a pint, he meant a pint of sherry. But the maid had said he kept a pot-house, and no pot-houses have wine-licences; but the maid after all might be an envious baggage, and no better than she should be. But what was now to be done? Why, clearly make the best of the matter, eat the chop and leave the sherry. So I commenced eating the chop, which was by this time nearly cold. After eating a few morsels I looked at the sherry; “I may as well take a glass,” said I. So with a wry face I poured myself out a glass. “What detestable stuff!” said I, after I had drunk it. “However, as I shall have to pay for it I may as well go through with it.” So I poured myself out another glass, and by the time I had finished the chop I had finished the sherry also.