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Tom Jones and Partridge head for Gloucester and, on arriving there, decide to lodge at the Bell, which the narrator recommends to his readers. The landlord's wife, Mrs. Whitefield, is beautiful and good-natured and generally free of silly notions. She notices "in the Air of our Heroe something which distinguished him from the Vulgar" and invites Jones to dine with her that night. At dinner, Jones meets Dowling, the attorney from Salisbury who conveyed the news of Mrs. Blifil's death, and a petty-fogger, a term for a lawyer willing to take any case. Displeased with the paltry conversation, Tom leaves the table as soon as the food has been cleared. After he has left, the petty-fogger proceeds to tell a distorted history of Tom's life. He claims that Tom is "the Bastard of a Fellow who was hanged for Horse-stealing." When the Petty-fogger says the man's name is "Thomas Jones," Dowling gets excited, saying he has heard about many good things about him. The landlady no longer likes Tom and refuses to drink tea with him. She is so rude to him that he pays his bill and leaves the house.