408 CONVERSATIONES. 



Nickem to live ? If he was an honest or honourable 

 man, the twenty would starve him ! but Nick worit 

 starve ; to prevent which he does nick them ; and I 

 fear there are not many who would prefer losing 

 their money and time as men of integrity to making 

 money as he does. 



Nickem, by way of a little every-day dinner, prefers 

 a dish of crimped skate, some calf's head, a teal, arid 

 some fritters, to pickled pork and greens : so do I ; I 

 hate pork. Whether in Nickem's situation I should 

 prefer eating the abomination, as an honest man, to 

 dining as Nick does, my friends must judge: but at 

 all events Nick does not relish the porcine dish, and 

 in fact won't eat it ; so his customers must find him 

 something better. To get this, he must side with 

 dealers, for they would be too strong for him. He 

 goes in this case upon a liberal principle viz. " live 

 and let live" just as a single man's servant in lodg- 

 ings allows the landlady to crib his master's hyson 

 (and indeed every thing else), while she in return 

 never hints that Tom, or Wilson, or Morbleu, as the 

 name may be, charges master nine shillings a pound 

 for what he buys at seven. Thus they take their tea 

 very comfortably together : this is social and liberal. 

 I hope I have the germ in me of these feelings ; but I 

 have a dogged kind of feeling that I must say makes 

 me wish to be so when and to what extent I please ; 

 or in short, as I mentioned of Liston, to " mix for 

 myself." I am quite willing to let others do so ; but 

 then I must not be expected to pay for the melange, 

 as in the following case. 



I sent my groom and a helper with my horses to a 

 town, wishing to get a fortnight's hunting with some 

 hounds I wanted to see. On bringing in his week's 



