the matter. He has that admirable quality for a tough arguer, also, that
he never knows when he is beat. He has half a dozen old maxims, which he
advances on all occasions, and though his antagonist may overturn them
never so often, yet he always brings them anew into the field. He is
like the robber in Ariosto, who, though his head might be cut off half a
hundred times, yet whipped it on his shoulders again in a twinkling,
and returned as sound a man as ever to the charge.

Whatever does not square with Jack's simple and obvious creed, he sets
down for "French politics;" for, notwithstanding the peace, he cannot be
persuaded that the French are not still laying plots to ruin the nation,
and to get hold of the Bank of England. The radical attempted to
overwhelm him one day by a long passage from a newspaper; but Jack
neither reads nor believes in newspapers. In reply he gave him one of
the stanzas which he has by heart from his favourite, and indeed only
author, old Tusser, and which he calls his Golden Rules:

"Leave Princes' affairs undescanted on,
And tend to such doings as stand thee upon;
Fear God, and offend not the King nor his laws,
And keep thyself out of the magistrate's claws."

When Tibbets had pronounced this with great emphasis, he pulled out a
well-filled leathern purse, took out a handful of gold and silver, paid
his score at the bar with great punctuality, returned his money, piece
by piece, into his purse, his purse into his pocket, which he buttoned
up, and then giving his cudgel a stout thump upon the floor, and
bidding the radical "Good morning, sir!" with the tone of a man who
conceives he has completely done for his antagonist, he walked with
lion-like gravity out of the house. Two or three of Jack's admirers who