shing it down, moreover, with a
quantity of ale that ails me--ahem!--(here Nettles put his finger on
the side of his nose, and grinned as if he had really said a capital
thing,) to see wasted on his lean carcase. But, Master Arundel, you
must be dry. There is some of the old Canary left."

"Let me have a bottle, and, if agreeable to thee, we will empty it
together."

As the landlord left the room, Arundel, on looking round, discovered
what he had not observed before, viz., our old friend, Master Pront,
in a sort of recess, formed by the projection of the chimney. The
worthy functionary was engaged, at the moment, in taking his eleven
o'clock refreshment of a pot of beer, (a habit from which his exile
from the old country had not been able to wean him,) but, at the
approach of the young man, he rose, and gravely shook hands with him.
Miles had barely time to offer a share of the wine, which, however,
Master Prout refused, when Nettles returned with a bottle.

"There," said he, setting it down, and looking affectionately at it,
"I warrant me you get no such soul of the grape among the red heathen,
though if they had any wit they might have puncheons of it, if they
only knew how to make them, for they say there is store of grape vines
growing about."

"As for me," said Master Prout, after raising the tankard to his lips,
and taking a draught, long and deep, "I'm a genuine Englishman in my
taste. Give me, say I, your humming beer, with a body to it, in place
of all the wishy-washy wines of the Frenchman or the Spaniard. They
only pucker one's mouth, and heat one's blood; but there is neither
bread nor cheese in them, as in good John Barleycorn."

"The ale deserves all your praise, Master Prout," said the host,
"though I say it myself; nevertheless, is the good wine not to be
despised. I know no reason why a true born Englishman may not like
both."

"It may be well for thee, whose business is to get thy living from
their sale, to talk thus," replied Master Prout; "but for all that, I
relish not these foreign decoctions--your Canaries, your Sherries, and
your Portos. Their very names have a smack of popery in them. Down
with the Pope, and all his inventions to tickle men's palates and damn
their souls."

"And so say I, down with the Pope, but up with good wine, and down
with it too, so it only runs in the right place; but it grieves me to
hear you, good Master Prout, evening down good wine to the
Pope--why--"

"Co