TOM CRIB AND THE COPPERSMITHS.
The Champion of England—not he who, gallantly armed, rode proudly through ranks of assembled chivalry, and challenged the world in defence of his sovereign; but the champion of England's prouder pugilism—the belted hero of the prize ring—the man whose fist is fate—the—in a word, honest Tom Crib, entered the office covered with mud, and holding, in his giant grasp, a little, well-bemudded, wriggling coppersmith, named William Bull.—"And please your worships," said the Champion, "this here little rascal (shaking him) comes into my tap-room, with two or three dirty chaps of the same sort, and got so sweet upon themselves with drinking beer, that they must needs go into the parlour to drink grog amongst the gentlemen, your worships! and because I wouldn't stand that, this here little rascal (shaking him again) smashes two panes of glass to shivers, and then tried to bolt, but it wouldn't do."
The Champion was desired to loose his hold upon the coppersmith, which he did instantly; but he still regarded him with a look of angry indignation, whilst the saucy little coppersmith, adjusting his disordered jacket, exclaimed, "My eyes, Mister Tommy! let us ever catch you at Bristol again, and we'll zarve you out for this!"
Mr. Bull—Bill Bull, he called himself—was ordered to be quiet, on pain of being instantly locked up; and other witnesses of the affair were examined, by whose evidence the Champion's account of it was fully substantiated, with an additional circumstance or two, which he, with his usual modesty, had omitted to mention, viz. that he, with his own right arm, cleared his house of three coxcombical coppersmiths in a minute, and that when the fourth, Mr. Bill Bull, milled the glaze and bolted, the Champion himself pursued with the fleetness of a wild elephant, caught the scampering coppersmith by the "scuff of the neck," and falling with him to the earth, they rolled over and over in the mud, till the impetus of their fall was spent, and then they got up again; and this was the way in which they came to be so muddily encased.
The coppersmith had nothing to say for himself except that he thought himself "as good a man as Mister Tommy any day," and that he had as much right to drink grog in a parlour, as any other gentleman.
The magistrate commended the Champion's conduct; told him he should be protected from insult and outrage in his business; and ordered the pot-valiant coppersmith to be locked up until he should pay for the windows he had demolished.