"You treat your customers in rather a cavalier manner," said I, when we were alone together in the yard.
"Don't I ?" said the landlord; "and I'll treat them more so yet; now I have got the whiphand of the rascals I intend to keep it.

I dare say you are a bit surprised with regard to the change which has come over things since you were last here.

I'll tell you how it happened.

You remember in what a desperate condition you found me, thinking of changing my religion, selling my soul to the man in black, and then going and hanging myself like Pontius Pilate; and I dare say you can't have forgotten how you gave me good advice, made me drink ale, and give up sherry.

Well, after you were gone, I felt all the better for your talk, and what you had made me drink, and it was a mercy that I did feel better; for my niece was gone out, poor thing, and I was left alone in the house, without a soul to look at, or to keep me from doing myself a mischief in case I was so inclined.