"Well," said my brother-in-law to his friends, "if you will trust yourselves to me, I will ride and drive you back;" and, after tying the post-boy on to the carriage, where he soon fell fast asleep, my brother mounted and drove his party safely home.
This I thought a good subject for Leech, and I suggested it to him. He smiled faintly, and said not a word. Very nearly a year after I had told him of the incident, as I was walking with him one day, he said:
"By the way, Frith, are you going to use the subject you mentioned to me of the drunken post-boy and your brother-in-law?"
"I? No," said I; "it's more in your way than mine."
"Then I'll do it next week."
He was as good as his word.
Nothing could be less like my brother-in-law than the delightful "swell" who is driving home some charming women, who are, however, left to our imagination; and as to the post-boy, the artist has awoke him to some purpose. What could surpass that drunken smile?
They may be Officers but they are not Gentlemen.