Yes; two particular friends of mine, who
had always been offering me their purses when my own was stuffed
full, now talked of arresting me, though I only owed the scoundrels
a hundred pounds each; and they would have done so, provided I had
not paid them what I owed them; and how did I do that? Why, I was
able to do it because I found a friend--and who was that friend?
Why, a man who has since been hung, of whom everybody has heard,
and of whom everybody for the next hundred years will occasionally
talk.
"One day, whilst in trouble, I was visited by a person I had
occasionally met at sporting-dinners. He came to look after a
Suffolk Punch, the best horse, by the bye, that anybody can
purchase to drive, it being the only animal of the horse kind in
England that will pull twice at a dead weight. I told him that I
had none at that time that I could recommend; in fact, that every
horse in my stable was sick. He then invited me to dine with him
at an inn close by, and I was glad to go with him, in the hope of
getting rid of unpleasant thoughts. After dinner, during which he
talked nothing but slang, observing I looked very melancholy, he
asked me what was the matter with me, and I, my heart being opened
by the wine he had made me drink, told him my circumstances without
reserve.
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