My customers shall have abundance of rough language, but I'll knock any one down who says anything against the clergyman who lent me the fifty pounds, or against the Church of England, of which he is parson and I am churchwarden.

I am also ready to do anything in reason for him who paid me for the ale he drank, when I shouldn't have had the heart to collar him for the money had he refused to pay; who never jeered or flouted me like the rest of my customers when I was a down pin--and though he refused to fight cross _for_ me, was never cross _with_ me, but listened to all I had to say, and gave me all kinds of good advice.

Now who do you think I mean by this last?
why, who but yourself--who on earth but yourself?
The parson is a good man and a great preacher, and I'll knock anybody down who says to the contrary; and I mention him first, because why?
he's a gentleman, and you a tinker.

But I am by no means sure you are not the best friend of the two; for I doubt, do you see, whether I should have had the fifty pounds but for you.

You persuaded me to give up that silly drink they call sherry, and drink ale; and what was it but drinking ale which gave me courage to knock down that fellow Hunter--and knocking him down was, I verily believe, the turning point of my disorder.