Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/269

farmer agreed to put up there also; and they dismounted and entered, and had a good supper together, and talked over their affairs like men who had known and proved each other a long time. When it was the hour for retiring they went up-stairs to a double-bedded room which Georgy Crookhill had asked the landlord to let them share, so sociable were they.

“ Before they fell asleep they talked acroas the room about one thing and another, ranning from this to that till the conversation turned upon disguises, and changing clothes for particular ends. The farmer told Georgy that he had often heard tales of people doing it, but Crookhill professed to be very ignorant of all such tricks; and soon the young farmer sank into slumber,

“Early in the morning, while the tall young farmer was still asleep (I tell the story as twas told me), honest Georgy crept out of his bed by stealth, and dressed himself in the farmer's clothes, in the pockets of the said clothes being the farmer's money. Now though Georgy particularly wanted the farmer’s nice clothes and nice horse, owing to a little transaction at the fair which made it desirable that he should not be too easily recognized, his desires had their bounds ; he did not wish to take his young friend’s money, at any rate more of it than was necessary for paying his bill. This he abstracted, and leaving the farmer's purse containing the rest on the bedroom table, went downstairs, The inn folks had not particularly noticed the faces of their customers, and the one or two who were up at this hour had no thought but that Georgy was the farmer ; so when he had paid the bill very liberally, and said he must be off, no objection was made to his getting the farmer’s horse saddled for himself; and he rode away upon it as if it were his own.