I saw him exhibit his gift, and couldn't
blame the others for preferring him to me; he was a proper ugly
fellow at all times, but when he made faces his countenance was
like nothing human. He was called Ugly Moses. I was so amazed at
his faces, that though poor myself I gave him sixpence, which I
have never grudged to this day, for I never saw anything like them.
The firm throve wonderfully after he had been admitted into it. He
died some little time ago, keeper of a public-house, which he had
been enabled to take from the profits of his faces. A son of his,
one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered
his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one. He has
his gift--he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has
something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet
grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his
father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and
Biting Giles, but that grin of his caused him to be noticed by a
much greater person than either; an attorney observing it took a
liking to the lad, and prophesied that he would some day be heard
of in the world; and in order to give him the first lift, took him
into his office, at first to light fires and do such kind of work,
and after a little time taught him to write, then promoted him to a
desk, articled him afterwards, and being unmarried, and without
children, left him what he had when he died.
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