178 THE HOESE AND HIS KIDEK. 



again !" said Smith to his gallant smutty antagonist. 

 True to his word, the next morning the squire's groom 

 was seen inquiring where the coal-heaver lived. On 

 finding the man, whose face, like his master's, had received 

 some heavy bruises, he said to him, "Mr. Smith has 

 sent me to give you this sovereign, and to tell you you're 

 the best man that ever stood before him." " God bless 

 his honour !" replied the man, " and thank him a thousand 

 times." 



When Tom Smith was at Eton, fighting had not cropped 

 to the surface of a schoolfellow and friend who in after 

 life, known by the name of WELLINGTON, greatly dis- 

 tinguished himself in this world by seeking and by 

 gaining pitched battles. " I suppose, Smith," said the 

 old silver-haired Duke to him, one day, in London, 

 " you've done now with fighting ?" " Oh, yes," replied 

 Smith, then in his sixtieth year, " I've quite given that 



up ; but " suddenly correcting himself, he added, " I'll 



fight yet any man of my age" 



At Chapmansford, when upwards of seventy, a rough 

 country fellow, before a large field of sportsmen, threw a 

 stone at one of the hounds of the old squire, who instantly 

 struck him with his hunting whip. " You daren't do that 

 if you were off your horse," said the man. The words 

 were hardly out of the clodhopper's mouth when (in the 

 seventh age of man) Smith stood before him, with a pair 



