o the footman.' I should not wonder if Joe, some day or
other, should overtop the footman, and rise to be butler; and his
splendid prospects must be our consolation for the loss of this great
favourite. In the meantime we have Ben.

Ben Kirby is a year younger than Joe, and the school-fellow and rival of
Jem Eusden. To be sure his abilities lie in rather a different line: Jem
is a scholar, Ben is a wag: Jem is great in figures and writing, Ben in
faces and mischief. His master says of him, that, if there were two such
in the school, he must resign his office; and as far as my observation
goes, the worthy pedagogue is right. Ben is, it must be confessed, a
great corrupter of gravity. He hath an exceeding aversion to authority
and decorum, and a wonderful boldness and dexterity in overthrowing the
one and puzzling the other. His contortions of visage are astounding.
His 'power over his own muscles and those of other people' is almost
equal to that of Liston; and indeed the original face, flat and square
and Chinese in its shape, of a fine tan complexion, with a snub
nose, and a slit for a mouth, is nearly as comical as that matchless
performer's. When aided by Ben's singular mobility of feature, his
knowing winks and grins and shrugs and nods, together with a certain
dry shrewdness, a habit of saying sharp things, and a marvellous gift of
impudence, it forms as fine a specimen as possible of a humorous country
boy, an oddity in embryo. Everybody likes Ben, except his butts (which
may perhaps comprise half his acquaintance); and of them no one so
thoroughly hates and dreads him as our parish schoolmaster, a most
worthy King Log, whom Ben dumbfounds twenty times a day. He is a great
ornament of the cricket-ground, has a real genius for the game,
and displays it after a very original manner, under the disguise of
awkwardness--as the clown shows off his agility in a pantomime. Nothing
comes amiss to him. By the bye, he would have been the very lad for us
in our present dilemma; not a horse in England could master Ben Kirby.
But we are too far from him now--and perhaps it is as well that we are
so. I believe the rogue has a kindness for me, in remembrance of certain
apples and nuts, which my usual companion, who delights in his wit,
is accustomed to dole out to him. But it is a Robin Goodfellow
nevertheless, a perfect Puck, that loves nothing on earth so well as
mischief. Perhaps the horse may be the safer conductor of the two.