“That it is, sir; and I’m very glad to see you know how to appreciate it. Talk about your railways, it’s perfect nonsense compared with a good four-in-hand coach, sir.” As he said this, he whipped his horses, “Pst! go ahead, my true blue! I recollect the good old time when we took from fourteen to fifteen hours from London to Dover, changing horses and drinking your glass of grog at almost every inn on the road—in fact, enjoying ourselves all night, especially when the widow was out.”
“What widow?” said I.
“The moon, to be sure!”
“That is a bright idea of yours. I was not aware the pale queen of night was a widow.”
“Lord bless you, sir, she must be a widow, for she always comes out alone, and keeps very late hours; a maid or a married woman can’t do that, you know,” said he, laughing heartily.
“If your remark is not correct, it is at all events very original.”
“But to come back to coach-travelling—then you really knew if you were travelling or stopping at home; while now they pack you up under lock and key, in strong wooden boxes, such as we keep our horses in at the stable; and at the head of them they have a kind of long iron saveloy, full of nothing, which runs away with the lot like mad, belching and swearing all the way, taking sights at us poor coachmen just so,” putting his hand to his nose, “when we go by, as though we were a set of ragamuffins. Call that a gentlemanly way of travelling, sir! They make fun of all the passengers who are a little behind time, saying the like of this: ‘Don’t you wish you may get it?’ If you drop anything by accident, the deuce a bit will they stop to pick it up; and you are no sooner in than they turn you out, and pocket your money without blushing, the same as though they had dragged you about from morning till night, as we used to do in the good old time. That was indeed money honestly earned, sir!”
“There certainly is a great deal of truth in your argument,” said I, laughing at his devotion to his old business.
“Is it not brimful of truth, sir?”
“Of course it is!” I was by this time about half frozen.