United States of America, you would have taken the right.'

'I would not,' cried Mr Chandler indignantly. 'I would have taken the

left.'

'I observe again,' continued Mr Finsbury, scorning to reply, 'that you

mend the dilapidated parts of your harness with string. I have always

protested against this carelessness and slovenliness of the English

poor. In an essay that I once read before an appreciative audience--'

'It ain't string,' said the carrier sullenly, 'it's pack-thread.'

'I have always protested,' resumed the old man, 'that in their private

and domestic life, as well as in their labouring career, the lower

classes of this country are improvident, thriftless, and extravagant. A

stitch in time--'

'Who the devil ARE the lower classes?' cried the carrier. 'You are the

lower classes yourself! If I thought you were a blooming aristocrat, I

shouldn't have given you a lift.'

The words were uttered with undisguised ill-feeling; it was plain the

pair were not congenial, and further conversation, even to one of Mr

Finsbury's pathetic loquacity, was out of the question. With an angry

gesture, he pulled down the brim of the forage-cap over his eyes,

and, producing a notebook and a blue pencil from one of his innermost

pockets, soon became absorbed in calculations.

On his part the carrier fell to whistling with fresh zest; and if (now

and again) he glanced at the companion of his drive, it was with mingled

feelings of triumph and alarm--triumph because he had succeeded in

arresting that prodigy of speech, and alarm lest (by any accident) it

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