“Well, Byerley, simple as he may be, you are quite as much so, depend upon it, to talk politics in a diligence.”
“Oh! it all depends upon who listens. This was a good-natured creature as could be. He was very civil about my accommodation, and enquired what luggage I had, that he might have an eye to its being stowed away in the right place.”
“Is your portmanteau safe?” enquired Mr. Fletcher. Mr. Byerley only answered by pointing to it as it lay in the hall.
“Your civil friend examined it, I dare say.”
“Yes, such people are always curious. I saw him spelling out my name and feeling the weight of the trunk; and he remarked the roll of paper (music for Mary) peeping out of my coat-pocket. He began fishing to discover what it was.”
“And did you show it him?”
“No: I thought it was time to check his curiosity, so I put it out of sight.”
“Well, you had better have had your girls with you. I will answer for it they would know better how to conduct themselves in a diligence than their father. But come, I have made an appointment for you at Béranger’s. He is to show us the plan of the new Institute; and it is time we were gone.”
When the gentlemen returned from the house of M. Béranger, (the magistrate to whom Mr. Byerley had before been introduced,) Mr. Fletcher looked very grave, while his friend was laughing.
“Whom do you think we met, just now?” said he.