Note {20a} — INTRODUCTION.
Reading edition
The beer he got was seldom to his taste; he called it “swipes,” but went on drinking glass after glass. What a figure he must have made in the bar parlour of the Bald-faced Stag at Roehampton, with his tales of Jerry Abershaw, Ambrose Gwinett, Thurtell and Wainewright! Mr. Watts-Dunton says he had the gift of drinking deeply, but he adds “of the waters of life,” a refinement which Borrow himself might have deprecated.