"'Hem! I am not sure of that,' said Lord Bolsover; 'but I'll just tell you what I have done—from Rome to Naples in nineteen hours; a fact, upon my honour—and from Naples to Paris in six days.'
"'Partly by sea?'
"'No! all by land;' replied Lord Bolsover, with a look of proud satisfaction.
"'I'll just tell you what I did,' Mr. Leighton chimed in again, 'and I think it is a devilish good plan—it shows what one can do. I went straight an end, as fast as I could, to what was to be the end of my journey. This was Sicily; so straight away I went there at the devil's own rate, and never stopped any where by the way; changed horses at Rome and all those places, and landed in safety in —— I forget exactly how long from the time of starting, but I have got it down to an odd minute. As for the places I left behind, I saw them all on my way back, except the Rhine, and I steamed down that in the nighttime.'
"'I have travelled a good deal by night,' said Theobald. 'With a dormeuse and travelling lamp I think it is pleasant, and a good plan of getting on.'
"'And you can honestly say, I suppose,' said Denbigh, 'that you have slept successfully through as much fine country as any man living?'
"'Oh, I did see the country—that is, all that was worth seeing. My courier knew all about that, and used to stop and wake me whenever we came to any thing remarkable. Gad! I have reason to remember it, too, for I caught an infernal bad cold one night when I turned out by lamp-light to look at a waterfall. I never looked at another.'"
SCRIPTURAL ANTIQUITIES.
We resume our quotations from this treasurable little volume already noticed in No. 551, of The Mirror. Taken altogether, it is an exhaustless mine of research upon subjects which have awakened curiosity from childhood to old age—from the little wonder-struck learner on the school form to the patient inquirer with spectacle on nose.