“Don’t harm me?” the choleric gentleman retorted. “Don’t harm me? What’s that to do with it? What right—what right have you, man, to put party filth like that on a public vehicle in which I pay to ride? ‘The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill!’ D—n the Bill, sir!” with violence. “Take it down! Take it down at once!” he repeated, as if his order closed the matter.
The guard frowned at the placard, which bore, largely printed, the legend which the gentleman found so little to his taste. He rubbed his head. “Well, I don’t know, sir,” he said. And then—the crowd about the coach was growing—he looked at the driver. “What do you say, Sammy?” he asked.
“Don’t touch it,” growled the driver, without deigning to turn his head.
“You see, sir, it is this way,” the guard ventured civilly. “Mr. Palmer has a Whig meeting at Reading to-day and the town will be full. And if we don’t want rotten eggs and broken windows—we’ll carry that!”
“I’ll not travel with it!” the stout gentleman answered positively. “Do you hear me, man? If you don’t take it down I will!”
“Best not!” cried a voice from the little crowd about the coach. And when the angry gentleman turned to see who spoke, “Best not!” cried another behind him. And he wheeled about again, so quickly that the crowd laughed. This raised his wrath to a white heat.
He grew purple. “I shall have it taken down!” he said. “Guard, remove it!”
“Don’t touch it,” growled the driver—one of a class noted in that day for independence and surly manners. “If the gent don’t choose to travel with it, let him stop here and be d—d!”
“Do you know,” the insulted passenger cried, “that I am a Member of Parliament?”
“I’m hanged if you are!” coachee retorted. “Nor won’t be again!”