'
"'Old ale,' I says; 'why he's a teetotaler.'
"'Never you mind that,' he answers; 'you give him a pint of old ale.
I know these ponies; he's a good 'un, but he ain't set. A pint of
old ale, and he'll take you up that hill like a cable tramway, and
not hurt himself.'
"I don't know what it is about this class of man. One asks oneself
afterwards why one didn't knock his hat over his eyes and run his
head into the nearest horse-trough. But at the time one listens to
them. I got a pint of old ale in a hand-bowl, and brought it out.
About half-a-dozen chaps were standing round, and of course there
was a good deal of chaff.
"'You're starting him on the downward course, Jim,' says one of
them. 'He'll take to gambling, rob a bank, and murder his mother.
That's always the result of a glass of ale, 'cording to the tracts.'
"'He won't drink it like that,' says another; 'it's as flat as ditch
water. Put a head on it for him.'
"'Ain't you got a cigar for him?' says a third.
"'A cup of coffee and a round of buttered toast would do him a sight
more good, a cold day like this,' says a fourth.
"I'd half a mind then to throw the stuff away, or drink it myself;
it seemed a piece of bally nonsense, giving good ale to a
four-year-old pony; but the moment the beggar smelt the bowl he
reached out his head, and lapped it up as though he'd been a
Christian; and I jumped into the cart and started off, amid cheers.
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