At last we were called to table.  The two hinds (and one of them looked sadly worn and white in the face, as though sick with over-work and under-feeding) supped off a single plate of some sort of bread-berry, some potatoes in their jackets, a small cup of coffee sweetened with sugar-candy, and one tumbler of swipes.  The landlady, her son, and the lass aforesaid, took the same.  Our meal was quite a banquet by comparison.  We had some beefsteak, not so tender as it might have been, some of the potatoes, some cheese, an extra glass of the swipes, and white sugar in our coffee.

You see what it is to be a gentleman—­I beg your pardon, what it is to be a pedlar.  It had not before occurred to me that a pedlar was a great man in a labourer’s ale-house; but now that I had to enact the part for an evening, I found that so it was.  He has in his hedge quarters somewhat the same pre-eminency as the man who takes a private parlour in an hotel.  The more you look into it, the more infinite are the class distinctions among men; and possibly, by a happy dispensation, there is no one at all at the bottom of the scale; no one but can find some superiority over somebody else, to keep up his pride withal.

We were displeased enough with our fare.  Particularly the Cigarette, for I tried to make believe that I was amused with the adventure, tough beefsteak and all.  According to the Lucretian maxim, our steak should have been flavoured by the look of the other people’s bread-berry.  But we did not find it so in practice.  You may have a head-knowledge that other people live more poorly than yourself, but it is not agreeable—­I was going to say, it is against the etiquette of the universe—­to sit at the same table and pick your own superior diet from among their crusts.  I had not seen such a thing done since the greedy boy at school with his birthday cake.  It was odious enough to witness, I could remember; and I had never thought to play the part myself.  But there again you see what it is to be a pedlar.

There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country are much more charitably disposed than their superiors in wealth.  And I fancy it must arise a great deal from the comparative indistinction of the easy and the not so easy in these ranks.  A workman or a pedlar cannot shutter himself off from his less comfortable neighbours.  If he treats himself to a luxury, he must do it in the face of a dozen who cannot.  And what should more directly lead to charitable thoughts? . . .  Thus the poor man, camping out in life, sees it as it is, and knows that every mouthful he puts in his belly has been wrenched out of the fingers of the hungry.

But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon ascent, the fortunate person passes through a zone of clouds, and sublunary matters are thenceforward hidden from his view.  He sees nothing but the heavenly bodies, all in admirable order, and positively as good as new.  He finds himself surrounded in the most touching manner by the attentions of Providence, and compares himself involuntarily with the lilies and the skylarks.  He does not precisely sing, of course; but then he looks so unassuming in his open landau!  If all the world dined at one table, this philosophy would meet with some rude knocks.