1829. ] the Cambridge Coachman. 21 
« «So, he said, ‘ it seems you have made up your mind to stay 
here, whether I will or no ?’ 
«« Truly have I,’ replied Frank, leisurely stretching out his feet on 
the fender, like a man very much at his ease, and determined to be still 
more so. ‘I have no mind for the common to-night ; so you may as 
well, for the credit of your house, let me have a quart of humming ale, 
with the bread and meat conforming, and a comfortable glass of punch, 
when all’s done, to qualify the crudities of the stomach and keep off the 
night-mare. It would be a scandal to the Red Lion for ever and a day, 
if I should sup on poor diet, or, what is worse, fast on no diet at all.’ 
« There was no resisting Frank’s good-humoured impudence ; and 
Mr. Barnaby, though as cross-grained a brute as ever set up a sign-post, 
found himself in a manner compelled to do his guest’s bidding. He gave 
up his own seat to him at the table, and placed before him a tankard of 
brown ale, with the cold remains of a noble sirloin, and its usual accom- 
paniments of bread and mustard ; upon which Frank fell, tooth and 
nail, with such an appetite as is only to be got by fasting for eight or ten 
hours in the bleak air of the mountains. In a short time, he had made 
himself quite at home with the good company. He hobbed and nobbed 
with those nearest to him, brandished his tankard by way of signal to 
those who were too far off for the closer ceremony of clinking cups ; 
and, as one poor quart was insufficient to so many toasts and pledges, he 
was fain to call out for a fresh supply. 
« « Come, landlord,’ he said ; ‘ the bottom of the cup cries tink, tink ! 
Let us have an editio secunda, auctior et emendatior,—or, for your better 
understanding, a tankard twice as big, and twice as full, as the last. 
j And, good Mr. Barnaby—excellent Mr. Barnaby—let us have no froth- 
ings up of the ale-pot : I love to see the top of my liquor as smooth and 
clear as a mill-pond. It is a sin to waste the good creature in foam and 
froth, as if it were so much soap-suds for a school-boy to blow away in 
air-bubbles.’ 
“The landlord guessed at once that Frank was no youngster, on 
whom a host might impose short measure and long reckoning ; but he 
liked him not a jot the more for that, though he took care to draw his 
ale of the best, and in a handsome quart that the gauger himself could 
not have quarrelled with ; at the same time scoring up this new offenee 
to Frank’s account with the rest of his transgressions—namely, his forci- 
ble entry upon the premises of the Red Lion—his persisting to stay when 
desired to take himself off—and last, not least, usurping the place of 
joker-general to the company, to the utter eclipse of the said landlord, 
who had hitherto filled the post with distinguished honour to himself, 
and to the no small satisfaction of his guests. The total of these offences 
ounted to a handsome sum, which mine host promised himself to pay 
to the last farthing ; and, indeed, I have always observed, that, how- 
er slow folks may be in money-matters, they are more than sufficiently 
ert in bringing things to a settlement, when they are indebted to any 
in an account of ill-will for offences real or imaginary.—But the 
occasion was not yet come. 
“ After a time, when the punch had circulated freely, the conversation 
turned upon ghosts—no unusual thing, at such an hour, and with such a 
meeting. This was the landlord’s strong ground ; he had at one time, 
before he succeeded, by the death of a fat uncle, to his present inn, been 
sexton tothe parish—which, by-the-by, accounts tolerably well for his spare 
