g, and shoot (he had been a keeper in
his youth, and still retained the love of sportsmanship which those
who imbibe it early seldom lose) with any man in the county. He was
discreet, too, for a man of his occupation; knew precisely how drunk
a journeyman tailor ought to get, and when to stop a fight between a
Somersetshire cattle-dealer and an Irish pig-driver. No inquest had ever
sat upon any of his customers. Small wonder, that with such a landlord
the Old Red Cow should be a hostelry of unmatched resort and unblemished
reputation.

The chief exception to Jem Tyler's almost universal popularity was
beyond all manner of doubt his fair neighbour Miss Philadelphia Firkin.
She, together with her trusty adherents, Miss Wolfe and Mr. Lamb, held
Jem, his alehouse, and his customers, whether tailor, drover, or dealer,
his yard and its contents, horse or donkey, ox or cow, pig or dog, in
unmeasured and undisguised abhorrence: she threatened to indict the
place as a nuisance, to appeal to the mayor; and upon "some good-natured
friend" telling her that mine host had snapped his fingers at her as
a chattering old maid, she did actually go so far as to speak to her
landlord, who was also Jem's, upon the iniquity of his doings. This
worthy happening, however, to be a great brewer, knew better than to
dismiss a tenant whose consumption of double X was so satisfactory.
So that Miss Firkin took nothing by her motion beyond a few of those
smoothen-ing and pacificatory speeches, which, when administered to
a person in a passion, have, as I have often observed, a remarkable
tendency to exasperate the disease.

At last, however, came a real and substantial grievance, an actionable
trespass; and although Miss Philly was a considerable loser by the
mischance, and a lawsuit is always rather a questionable remedy for
pecuniary damage, yet such was the keenness of her hatred towards poor
Jem, that I am quite convinced that in her inmost heart (although being
an excellent person in her way, it is doubtful whether she told herself
the whole truth in the matter) she rejoiced at a loss which would
enable her to take such signal vengeance over her next-door enemy. An
obstreperous cow, walking backward instead of forward, as that placid
animal when provoked has the habit of doing, came in contact with a weak
part of the paling which divided Miss Firkin's back premises from Master
Tyler's yard, and not only upset Mr. Lamb into a crate of crockery w