and row
with them, when you have a chance. Do all this honestly as man to man,
and by the time you come to ride old John, you'll be able to do
something more than sit on his back, and may feel his mouth with some
stronger bridle than a red-tape one.

Ah, if you only would! But you have got too far out of the right rut,
I fear. Too much over civilization, and the deceitfulness of riches.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. More's the
pity. I never came across but two of you who could value a man wholly
and solely for what was in him; who thought themselves verily and
indeed of the same flesh and blood as John Jones, the attorney's
clerk, and Bill Smith, the costermonger,[87] and could act as if they
thought so.

[87] #Costermonger#: a fruit and vegetable pedler.

CHAPTER III.

SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES.

"Poor old Benjy! the "rheumatiz" has much to answer for all through
English country-sides,[1] but it never played a scurvier trick than in
laying thee by the heels, when thou wast yet in a green old age. The
enemy, which had long been carrying on a sort of border warfare, and
trying his strength against Benjy's on the battlefield of his hands
and legs, now, mustering all his forces, began laying siege to the
citadel, and overrunning the whole country. Benjy was seized in the
back and loins; and though he made strong and brave fight, it was soon
clear enough that all which could be beaten of poor old Benjy would
have to give in before long.

[1] #Country-sides#: country districts.

It was as much as he could do now, with the help of his big stick and
frequent stops, to hobble down to the canal with Master Tom, and bait
his hook for him, and sit and watch his angling, telling him quaint
old country stories; and when Tom had no sport, and detecting a rat
some hundred yards or so off along the bank, would rush off with Toby,
the turnspit[2] terrier, his other faithful companion, in bootless
pursuit, he might have tumbled in and been drowned twenty times over
before Benjy could have got near him.

[2] #Turnspit#: a kind of dog, formerly trained to turn a spit
for roasting meat.

Cheery and unmindful of himself as Benjy was, this loss of locomotive
power bothered him greatly. He had got a new object in his old age,
and was just beginning to think himself useful again in the world. He
feared much, too, lest Master Tom should fall back again into the
hands of Charity a