"'Osses?" cried the coachman, turning round upon Mr. Pickwick, with sharp suspicion in his eye. "'Osses? d'ye say. Oh, who are you a-gettin' at?"
Mr. Pickwick withdrew promptly into his coat-collar.
The irrepressible Sam came immediately to the aid of his beloved master, whom he would never see snubbed if he knew it.
"There's vheels vithin vheels, as the bicyclist said vhen he vos pitched head foremost into the vatchmaker's vinder," remarked Mr. Weller, Junior, with the air of a Solomon in smalls. "But vot sort of a vheel do you call that thing in front of you, and vot's its pertikler objeck? a top of a coach instead o' under it?"
"This yer wheel means Revolution," said the driver.
"It do, Samivel, it do," interjected his father dolorously. "And in my opinion it's a worse Revolution than that there French one itself. A coach vithout 'osses, vheels instead of vheelers, and a driver vithout a vhip! Oh Sammy, Sammy, to think it should come to this!!!"
The driver—if it be not desecration to a noble old name so to designate him—gave a turn to his wheel and the autocar started. Mr. Winkle, who sat at the extreme edge, waggled his shadowy legs forlornly in the air; Mr. Snodgrass, who sat next to him, snorted lugubriously; Mr. Tupman turned paler than even a Stygian shade has a right to do. Mr. Pickwick took off his glasses and wiped them furtively.
"Sam," he whispered hysterically in the ear of his faithful servitor, "Sam, this is dreadful! A—ahem!—vehicle with no visible means of propulsion pounding along like—eh—Saint Denis without his head, is more uncanny than Charon's boat."
"Let's get down, Sammy, let's get down at once," groaned Mr. Weller the elder. "I can't stand it, Samivel, I really can't. Think o' the poor 'osses, Sammy, think o' the poor 'osses as ain't there, and vot they must feel to find theirselves sooperseeded by a hugly vheel and a pennorth o' peteroleum, &c.!"