he obliged with a supper, "In ten minutes." Then, after a pause, and
in a tone of deprecation, as if he feared he might be thought fine, he
continued, "We don't sup in the kitchen. My father did, and so did I
till I married; but my Bess, though she's as good a farmer's wife as
ever wore shoe-leather, was a tradesman's daughter, and had been
brought up different. You see she was not without a good bit of
money: but even if she had been, I should not have liked her folks to
say I had lowered her; so we sup in the parlour."

Quoth Kenelm, "The first consideration is to sup at all. Supper
conceded, every man is more likely to get on in life who would rather
sup in his parlour than his kitchen. Meanwhile, I see a pump; while
you go to the cows I will stay here and wash my hands of them."

"Hold! you seem a sharp fellow, and certainly no fool. I have a son,
a good smart chap, but stuck up; crows it over us all; thinks no small
beer of himself. You'd do me a service, and him too, if you'd let him
down a peg or two."

Kenelm, who was now hard at work at the pump-handle, only replied by a
gracious nod. But as he seldom lost an opportunity for reflection, he
said to himself, while he laved his face in the stream from the spout,
"One can't wonder why every small man thinks it so pleasant to let
down a big one, when a father asks a stranger to let down his own son
for even fancying that he is not small beer. It is upon that
principle in human nature that criticism wisely relinquishes its
pretensions as an analytical science, and becomes a lucrative
profession. It relies on the pleasure its readers find in letting a
man down."