compatriot Turkey, was a very useful man to me; wrote a neat, swift
hand; and, when he chose, was not deficient in a gentlemanly sort of
deportment. Added to this, he always dressed in a gentlemanly sort of
way; and so, incidentally, reflected credit upon my chambers. Whereas,
with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to keep him from being a reproach
to me. His clothes were apt to look oily, and smell of eating-houses. He
wore his pantaloons very loose and baggy in summer. His coats were
execrable; his hat not to be handled. But while the hat was a thing of
indifference to me, inasmuch as his natural civility and deference, as a
dependent Englishman, always led him to doff it the moment he entered
the room, yet his coat was another matter. Concerning his coats, I
reasoned with him; but with no effect. The truth was, I suppose, that a
man with so small an income could not afford to sport such a lustrous
face and a lustrous coat at one and the same time. As Nippers once
observed, Turkey's money went chiefly for red ink. One winter day, I
presented Turkey with a highly respectable-looking coat of my own--a
padded gray coat, of a most comfortable warmth, and which buttoned
straight up from the knee to the neck. I thought Turkey would appreciate
the favor, and abate his rashness and obstreperousness of afternoons.
But no; I verily believe that buttoning himself up in so downy and
blanket-like a coat had a pernicious effect upon him--upon the same
principle that too much oats are bad for horses. In fact, precisely as a
rash, restive horse is said to feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat.
It made him insolent. He was a man whom prosperity harmed.

Though, concerning the self-indulgent habits of Turkey, I had my own
private surmises, yet, touching Nippers, I was well persuaded that,
whatever might be his faults in other respects, he was, at least, a
temperate young man. But, indeed, nature herself seemed to have been his
vintner, and, at his birth, charged him so thoroughly with an irritable,