"I was unable to do anything with it."
"Where is it then?"
"About five miles off, I judge, lying at the foot of a hill."
"Spilled, hey?"
"It will never hold anything again."
"What's that? what's this?" cried the landlord now, issuing from the lower door of the house; "what's wrong here, sir?"
"I do not know," said Mr. Southwode; "but there has been carelessness somewhere. Either the hostler did his work with his eyes shut, or the leather of the harness gave way, or the iron work of something. The pole fell, as we were going down a steep hill; of course the phaeton is a wreck. I could only save the horses."
The landlord was in a great fume.
"Sir, sir," he stammered and blustered,—"this is your account of it."
"Precisely," said Mr. Southwode. "That is my account of it."