I strolled forward, encountering more carts and more heaps of
greengages; presently I turned to the right by a street, which led
some way up the hill. The houses were tolerably large and all
white. The town, with its white houses placed by the seaside, on
the skirt of a mountain, beneath a blue sky and a broiling sun, put
me something in mind of a Moorish piratical town, in which I had
once been. Becoming soon tired of walking about, without any
particular aim, in so great a heat, I determined to return to the
inn, call for ale, and deliberate on what I had best next do. So I
returned and called for ale. The ale which was brought was not ale
which I am particularly fond of. The ale which I am fond of is ale
about nine or ten months old, somewhat hard, tasting well of malt
and little of the hop - ale such as farmers, and noblemen too, of
the good old time, when farmers' daughters did not play on pianos
and noblemen did not sell their game, were in the habit of offering
to both high and low, and drinking themselves. The ale which was
brought me was thin washy stuff, which though it did not taste much
of hop, tasted still less of malt, made and sold by one Allsopp,
who I am told calls himself a squire and a gentleman - as he
certainly may with quite as much right as many a lord calls himself
a nobleman and a gentleman; for surely it is not a fraction more
trumpery to make and sell ale than to fatten and sell game.
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