“Get inside, Jim,” cried the boy, with beaming face.
Jim, his face all one grin, obeyed, saying, as he did so,—
“Well, if you ain’t a queer one! That’s the house there, on the top of that hill. Mind how you go, now.”
“All right; you get inside. And I say, Jim,” added the boy, leaning down from his perch, “make yourself comfortable, you know, and don’t bother about me. I want to drive all by myself, and you aren’t to help me a bit, mind.”
So the driver got inside, and seating himself among the luggage, proceeded to make himself “comfortable,” as instructed.
Meanwhile my master, as proud as an emperor, lashed his steed into a canter, and rattled off in the direction of the school.
“That’ll astonish some of them caps and gowns, I reckon,” I heard cabby say to himself. “You see, if he don’t drive us right up to the front door, as comfortable as if we was the sheriff of the county.”
You may imagine what was the astonishment of the grave and reverend authorities at Randlebury School when they perceived, coming up the carriage drive, a cab with a boy of thirteen perched on the box, tugging at the reins, hallooing to the horse, and making his whip crack like so many fireworks; while inside, comfortably lounging amid a pile of luggage, reclined cabby at his ease, grinning from ear to ear.
The young Jehu, perfectly innocent of the sensation he was making, pursued his triumphant career at full speed up to the very hall door, pulling up his steed with such a sudden jerk as almost to bring him into a sitting position, while the piled-up luggage inside fell all about the cab with the shock, to the imminent risk of cabby’s life.
“Well, if that ain’t one way of doing it, I don’t know what is!” exclaimed that astonished charioteer, emerging from his precarious quarters. “Down you jump, young un.”