CHAPTER XIV 



THE FARMER 



N estimating the position 

 or pretensions of a 

 member of any calling, 

 it is important to know 

 whether the individual 

 in question is at the top 

 or the bottom of the 

 tree. Take a coach- 

 maker, for instance : it 

 makes all the difference 

 in the world whether the 

 party is a Baxter or a Leader, or one of the little 

 shuffling, shambling shed-holders we see on the City- 

 Road, or in the environs of London ; yet both write 

 themselves up coachmakers, and both are doubtless 

 entitled to the appellation. So John Slyboots, the 

 unlicensed peripatetic packman, with his decoy 

 ribbons and shawls, and circulars offering "equit- 

 able exchange " with servants for " household 

 commodities " — inviting domestics to rob their 

 masters and mistresses — may call himself a haber- 

 dasher ; but we suspect " Jones, Loyd, and Co., " or 

 "Lubbock, Sir John W., Bart, Forster and Co.," 

 would regard his "bit of stiff" with a very different 

 eye to what they would the acceptance of " Swan and 

 Edgar," or of their felicitously named neighbours, 

 " Evans and Liberty." 



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