Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

An Apology for Idlers 121
signalmen who convey you rapidly from
place to place, and the policemen who walk
the streets for your protection ; but is there
not a thought of gratitude in your heart for
certain other benefactors who set you smiling
when they fall in your way, or season your
dinner with good company ? Colonel New-
come helped to lose his friend's money ;
Fred Bayham had an ugly trick of borrowing
shirts ; and yet they were better people to
fall among than Mr. Barnes. And though
Falstaff was neither sober nor very honest, I
think I could name one or two long-faced
Barabbases whom the world could better
have done without. Hazlitt mentions that
he was more sensible of obligation to North-
cote, who had never done him anything he
could call a service, than to his whole circle
of ostentatious friends ; for he thought a
good companion emphatically the greatest
benefactor. I know there are people in the
world who cannot feel grateful unless the
favour has been done them at the cost of
pain and difficulty. But this is a churlish