Anybody is welcome to stoop and pick up nothing,
or worse than nothing, and if Mumbo Jumbo's people, after their
expeditions, return to their haunts with no better plunder in the
shape of converts than what I saw going into yonder place of call,
I should say they are welcome to what they get; for if that's the
kind of rubbish they steal out of the Church of England, or any
other church, who in his senses but would say a good riddance, and
many thanks for your trouble: at any rate, that is my opinion of
the matter."
CHAPTER XXIX
Deliberations with Self-Resolution--Invitation to Dinner--The
Commercial Traveller--The Landlord's Offer--The Comet Wine.
It was now that I had frequent deliberations with myself. Should I
continue at the inn in my present position? I was not very much
captivated with it; there was little poetry in keeping an account
of the corn, hay, and straw which came in, and was given out, and I
was fond of poetry; moreover, there was no glory at all to be
expected in doing so, and I was fond of glory. Should I give up
that situation, and remaining at the inn, become ostler under old
Bill? There was more poetry in rubbing down horses than in keeping
an account of straw, hay, and corn; there was also some prospect of
glory attached to the situation of ostler, for the grooms and
stable-boys occasionally talked of an ostler, a great way down the
road, who had been presented by some sporting people, not with a
silver vase, as our governor had been, but with a silver currycomb,
in testimony of their admiration for his skill; but I confess that
the poetry of rubbing down had become, as all other poetry becomes,
rather prosy by frequent repetition, and with respect to the chance
of deriving glory from the employment, I entertained, in the event
of my determining to stay, very slight hope of ever attaining skill
in the ostler art sufficient to induce sporting people to bestow
upon me a silver currycomb.
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