" It proved to be a thin,
loquacious fellow, who had penned the landlord up in one corner of the
porch, with his hands in his pockets as usual, listening with an air
of the most vacant acquiescence.
The sight seemed to have a curious effect on Master Simon, as he
squeezed my arm, and, altering his course, sheered wide of the porch,
as though he had not had any idea of entering. This evident evasion
induced me to notice the orator more particularly. He was meagre, but
active in his make, with a long, pale, bilious face; a black beard, so
ill-shaven as to bloody his shirt-collar, a feverish eye, and a hat
sharpened up at the sides, into a most pragmatical shape. He had a
newspaper in his hand, and seemed to be commenting on its contents, to
the thorough conviction of mine host.
At sight of Master Simon, the landlord was evidently a little
flurried, and began to rub his hands, edge away from his corner, and
make several profound publican bows; while the orator took no other
notice of my companion than to talk rather louder than before, and
with, as I thought, something of an air of defiance. Master Simon,
however, as I have before said, sheered off from the porch, and passed
on, pressing my arm within his, and whispering, as we got by, in a
tone of awe and horror, "That's a radical! he reads Cobbett!"
I endeavoured to get a more particular account of him from my
companion, but he seemed unwilling even to talk about him, answering
only in general terms, that he was "a cursed busy fellow, that had a
confounded trick of talking, and was apt to bother one about the
national debt, and such nonsense;" from which I suspected that Master
Simon had been rendered wary of him by some accidental encounter on
the field of argument; for these radicals are continually roving about
in quest of wordy warfare, and never so happy as when they can tilt a
gentleman logician out of his saddle.
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