is set up for a character.

"Well, arter servants is gone, and women folks made
themselves scarce, we haul up closer to the table, have
more room for legs, and then comes the most interestin'
part. Poor rates, quarter sessions, turnpikes, corn-laws,
next assizes, rail-roads and parish matters, with a touch
of the horse and dog between primo and secondo genitur,
for variety. If politics turn up, you can read who host
is in a gineral way with half an eye. If he is an
ante-corn-lawer, then he is a manufacturer that wants to
grind the poor instead of grain. He is a _new man_ and
reformer. If he goes up to the bob for corn-law, then he
wants to live and let live, is _of an old family_, and
a tory. Talk of test oaths bein' done away with. Why Lord
love you, they are in full force here yet. See what a
feller swears by--that's his test, and no mistake.

"Well, you wouldn't guess now there was so much to talk
of, would you? But hear 'em over and over every day, the
same everlastin' round, and you would think the topics
not so many arter all, I can tell you. It soon runs out,
and when it does, you must wait till the next rain, for
another freshet to float these heavy logs on.

"Coffee comes, and then it's up and jine the ladies.
Well, then talk is tried agin, but it's no go; they can't
come it, and one of the good-natured fat old lady-birds
goes to the piany, and sits on the music stool. Oh,
Hedges! how it creaks, but it's good stuff, I guess, it