be, in Mudfog, a merry-tempered, pleasant-faced, good-for-nothing
sort of vagabond, with an invincible dislike to manual labour, and
an unconquerable attachment to strong beer and spirits, whom
everybody knew, and nobody, except his wife, took the trouble to
quarrel with, who inherited from his ancestors the appellation of
Edward Twigger, and rejoiced in the sobriquet of Bottle-nosed Ned.
He was drunk upon the average once a day, and penitent upon an
equally fair calculation once a month; and when he was penitent, he
was invariably in the very last stage of maudlin intoxication. He
was a ragged, roving, roaring kind of fellow, with a burly form, a
sharp wit, and a ready head, and could turn his hand to anything
when he chose to do it. He was by no means opposed to hard labour
on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match by the day
together,--running, and catching, and batting, and bowling, and
revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave. He would
have been invaluable to a fire-office; never was a man with such a
natural taste for pumping engines, running up ladders, and throwing
furniture out of two-pair-of-stairs' windows: nor was this the
only element in which he was at home; he was a humane society in
himself, a portable drag, an animated life-preserver, and had saved
more people, in his time, from drowning, than the Plymouth life-
boat, or Captain Manby's apparatus. With all these qualifications,
notwithstanding his dissipation, Bottle-nosed Ned was a general
favourite; and the authorities of Mudfog, remembering his numerous
services to the population, allowed him in return to get drunk in
his own way, without the fear of stocks, fine, or imprisonment. He
had a general licence, and he showed his sense of the compliment by
making the most of it.

We have been thus particular in describing the character and