Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/226

 says; “I have a philosophy by which I hold in private, and which teaches me not to contemn no man. This world runs so zig-zag; ’tis like a bolting horse. No sooner are the reins in your fingers but you are flung upon your nose and left with a bloody coxcomb on the roadway. We suffer the hazard of broken bottles, out of which the wine is spilled on every corner. Vessels, Ryder,” he added sententiously, “fashioned, some for honour, and some for dishonour; and that is the way my eyes look upon life.”

“Rip me,” said I, “’tis an excellent view, your reverence, which is to say, that had you been Dick Ryder and I Prisoner-Ordinary, I should be stuffing the creases out of my stomach to-morrow evening, and you would be swinging and creaking ’tween the crows and the frogs.”

“No doubt,” agreed the Ordinary, a little uneasily, and filled his glass again. “You will understand me, Ryder,” he went on, “when I confess to you that the topsman draws me strangely. I love him. ’Tis like