CHAPTER XIV 



THE FARMER 



N estimating the position or 

 pretensions of a member of 

 any calling, it is important 

 to know whether the indi- 

 vidual in question is at the 

 top or the bottom of the 

 tree. Take a coachmaker, 

 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 appella- 

 tion. So John Slyboots, the unlicensed peripatetic packman, 

 with his decoy ribbons and shawls, and circulars offering 

 " equitable exchange " with servants for "household commo- 

 dities'" — inviting domestics to rob their masters and mistresses — 

 may call himself a haberdasher ; 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." 



