ment in Turkey was quite out
of the question. Our traveller, since he could not otherwise acknowledge
this kind of favor, received it with the best grace in the world: he
made one of his most ceremonious bows, and begged the kicking Mussulman
"to accept his perfect assurances of high consideration." Our countryman
was too wise to imitate Othello in the use of the dagger. He thought it
better, as better it was, to assuage his bruised dignity with half a
yard square of balmy diplomatic diachylon. In the disasters of their
friends, people are seldom wanting in a laudable patience. When they
are such as do not threaten to end fatally, they become even matter of
pleasantry. The English fellow-travellers of our sufferer, finding him a
little out of spirits, entreated him not to take so slight a business so
very seriously. They told him it was the custom of the country; that
every country had its customs; that the Turkish manners were a little
rough, but that in the main the Turks were a good-natured people; that
what would have been a deadly affront anywhere else was only a little
freedom there: in short, they told him to think no more of the matter,
and to try his fortune in another promenade. But the squire, though a
little clownish, had some home-bred sense. "What! have I come, at all
this expense and trouble, all the way to Constantinople only to be
kicked? Without going beyond my own stable, my groom, for half a crown,
would have kicked me to my heart's content. I don't mean to stay in
Constantinople eight-and-forty hours, nor ever to return to this rough,
good-natured people, that have their own customs."

In my opinion the squire was in the right. He was satisfied with his
first ramble and his first injuries. But reason of state and common
sense are two things. If it were not for this difference, it might not
appear of absolute necessity, after having received a certain quantity
of buffetings by advance, that we should send a peer of the realm to the
scum of the earth to collect the debt to the last farthing, and to
receive, with infinite aggravation, the same scorns which had been paid
to our supplication through a commoner: but it was proper, I suppose,
that the whole of our country, in all its orders, should have a share of
the indignity, and, as in reason, that the higher orders should touch
the larger proportion.

This business was not ended because our dignity was wounded, or because
our patience was worn out wi