pass them with a circular motion behind his
back so that his hands should cross, and the
tip of his big bamboo cane should rise about
an inch or two above his hat. Then, and not
till then, the alderman launched forth in full
sail down Catherine-street, equal to any
emergency, the worthy burgher of a thriving
cathedral city.

But Alderman Craddock was our great
character. He was an ingrained humorist, and he
had developed his eccentricities to the utmost
in the idle afternoon of a busy life. He had
been in his youth a small printer—his detractors
said a compositor; in the printing-office, amid
the black rollers and the revolving wheels,
he had picked up odd learning and habits of
vigorous independent thinking. His name was
not really Craddock; but purposely in his
case, as in that of others, we suppress the
real name, to prevent giving offence to any
living descendant. A marriage with a woman
of some property had enabled Craddock to
retire from business in the prime of health and
strength, and to devote himself to the occupation
of newsmonger, quidnunc, and retailer of
good stories and old proverbs.

His humour, like good old sherry, grew
drier and more racy with age. Every day, at
a regular hour (for in those simpler quieter
and slower times, methodical men were more
common), Alderman Craddock took a walk on
the Wilton road as far as a certain little bridge
facing a village inn. There he halted, lifted
his hat in a reflective way, looked north, south,
east, and west, then turned on his heel, and
paced back again to the city. He was an
enthusiastic admirer of scenery, and would often
stop and entreat a companion to remark a certain
tree or watch an effect of light. Perhaps a great
artist lay dormant in the alderman's brain. He
would sometimes stop suddenly in a walk, fix
his eyes like a pointer at a quiet cow up to its
knees in flowering grass and purple clover, and
exclaim to his companion, "By Jove! sir, look
at that cow; there is real happiness. By Jove!
sir, I wish I was that cow!" Calvinists he
always regarded with especial dislike, as he
considered them pharasaical, presumptuous, and
intolerant. Whenever he met Alderman Bourne,
who was extreme in such principles, Craddock
used to half close his eyes, and, tapping Bourne
lightly on the chest, say, with a chuckle,
"Saved! saved!" then slapping his own breast,
groan, "D——d! d——d!" But the best
specimen of the alderman's odd humour is a
story he used to tell of Crampton, the carrier in
those days between Salisbury and Winchester.
He used to relate, in somewhat the following
words:

"One day, sir, when I was sitting at dinner,
there came a knock at the door, and the servant
showed in Crampton the carrier. The man
seemed in great trouble, and when I gave him
a chair he pulled out his handkerchief and burst
into tears. Yes, sir, he began to blubber, sir;
fact. 'Don't cry, man,' said I to him; 'it isn't
manly; it is of no use; it doesn't help matters.
Let's hear what it's all about.' Then he told
me that he had had some parchment and law
papers to bring for Squire Benbow's marriage
settlement, and somehow or other he had lost
them out of his cart. They'd cost twenty
pounds to get new, and he did not know where
to turn for the money; would I lend it for one
month, one month only, to help him? It should
be returned then, true as sunrise. Then, sir,
I asked the man, how on earth he came to me,
I, who scarcely knew him by sight, and had
never had a halfpenny-worth of dealings with
him except a parcel or two in the year. Well,
sir, his answer was, that he had lighted on me
because he had always thought from my face I
was a good-natured kind-hearted sort, of man.
Well, I sat and looked at the fire and thought
a minute or two, then I turned on him sharp,
and said, 'Look here, Crampton; you want this
money for the marriage parchments; you say
you'll pay me in one month; now I'll make it
three; pay me in three months, and I shall be
satisfied; hand me that pen and I'll write the
cheque.'

"I gave him the money, and off he went
rejoicing. Well, a month passed, two months passed,
three months passed, four months passed, still
no Crampton, no infernal Crampton. One day
I met a farmer who attended Winchester market,
and I asked him about Crampton. ' Why, Alderman
Craddock,' he said, ' he's stopped carrying
this three months.' The week after, I met
another friend, a Salisbury man, who had just
been to Winchester. I asked him if he ever
saw Crampton? 'Crampton?' said he; 'yes, I
saw him yesterday in Winchester filling a mud
cart he has bought.' 'The next time you go to
Winchester,' said I, 'if you see Crampton, say
to him Alderman Craddock, of Salisbury, has
been asking after him, and wants to know if he
remembers a certain business transaction there
was between them.' The next time I met my
friend, he told me he had met Crampton and
given him my message. 'Well, sir,' said I, 'and
what did he say?' My friend burst out laughing.
'I don't like to tell you,' said he. I pressed
him; he refused for a long time. At last,after
much coughing and laughing, he said: 'Why,
Crampton told me to tell you that you were an
infernal old fool ever to have expected to get the
money back.' " At this juncture of the story the
alderman used to look serious and pause; then
he would burst forth with this indignant peroration:
"Sir! Scene, Pandemonium. Dramatis
Personæ, Devils sitting round the table; dinner
over; cloth removed, wine and glasses brought
in. Well, one arch devil gets up and proposes a
toast, ' Ingratitude, coupling with it the name
of Crampton, the Winchester carrier.' Devils
turn down their glasses, some break them; they
refuse the toast, sir, and one of them rises and
says, ' No; we love all the vices, and we'll drink
to any of the passions; but ingratitude
—ingratitude and Crampton are too bad even for
hell':"

Poor old Craddock, he was quaint and
original to the last. One day, when he was