“He’ll never get over it,” said Jerry, “at least not for my work, so the farrier said this morning. He says he may do for carting, and that sort of work. It has put me out very much. Carting, indeed! I’ve seen what horses come to at that work round London. I only wish all the drunkards could be put in a lunatic asylum instead of being allowed to run foul of sober people. If they would break their own bones, and smash their own carts, and lame their own horses, that would be their own affair, and we might let them alone, but it seems to me that the innocent always suffer; and then they talk about compensation! You can’t make compensation; there’s all the trouble, and vexation, and loss of time, besides losing a good horse that’s like an old friend⁠—it’s nonsense talking of compensation! If there’s one devil that I should like to see in the bottomless pit more than another, it’s the drink devil.”

“I say, Jerry,” said the governor, “you are treading pretty hard on my toes, you know; I’m not so good as you are, more shame to me; I wish I was.”