Point iii.

MISERIES OF TRAVELLING BY COACH.

EXTRACTED FROM THE POCKET-BOOK OF FELIX FLEXIBLE, ESQ.

November 8.-JUST received information of the sudden. death of my relative Ralph Testy, banker of Birmingham; coroner's inquest sat the same day; verdict despondency, supposed to be occasioned by hearing the news of peace; imagine he anticipated ruin by the going off of the guntrade. Funeral takes place on Thursday; must be present to hear the will read; no time for mourning being made; borrowed a suit from my friend Sable the undertaker; not quite a fit; he weighs sixteen stone, and I am just jockey weight, nine stone two-MEM. look like an ass in an elephant's skin. Evening engaged in packing up portmanteau, writing letters on business, and directions for the guidance of my clerks till three next morning. Go shivering to bed; give instructions to my man servant to get breakfast ready, and call me at five; kept awake till four by the rain and hail beating against my window; no sooner asleep, but my troubled imagination represents my

old friend standing before me with the Gazette in one hand and a razor in the other-(delightful prospect !)— Wake in a state of nervous agitation, with a loud ringing at the bell, and the deep-mouthed note of the watchman proclaiming the half hour past five. Coach starts at a quarter before six precisely, from the Swan with Two Necks, Lad-lane; tolerable certainty of getting no breakfast, and being too late; hurry on Sable's black suit; feel like a naked man in a sack (a pleasant sensation in cold weather); meet my drowsy fellow at my chamber-door, in his night-cap and stockings, just as I am sallying forth; salute him with a good, round, forcible ejaculation for oversleeping himself, and then knock him down stairs with the portmanteau; jump over both, and run as fast as my legs can carry me down the City-road, leaving him to follow; overthrow two or three guardians of the night in my way, who are toddling home to finish their nap. Saluted by the sound of rattles, and suspected of housebreaking; a regular chase between me and the Charleys all the way to Lad-lane. Coach gone about-one minute and a half by the book-keeper's stop-watch; abused by the watchmen for not explaining what I was running for, and saving them the trouble of following me. My servant arrives out of breath, and both him and my portmanteau are covered with mud from a roll in the kennel; get into a hackney night-coach; promise an extra fee to drive fast to the White Horse Cellar; find his horses have but one pace, i. e.

two miles an hour. Saluted by a dreadful effluvia; lift up the cushions and seat from curiosity, and find the body of an infant freshly disinterred; feel myself in a pleasant perturbation of mind from the apprehension of being taken up for a resurrection man; obliged to proceed, and compelled for my own security to keep the secret. Arrive at the White Horse Cellar; just catch a glimpse of the sixinside heavy Birmingham at starting; pop my head through the coach window, and hallo as if my lungs would split; find five places occupied; called a shabby fellow by the Jarvey of the resurrection drag, for not tipping him enough of the extra for additional speed, and grumbled at by the heavy waggoner for keeping his team on the fret. Find my person tightly wedged inside between a bloated bilberry-nosed, Brummagem bacchanal, and a fat frowsy furbelowed landlady, all lace and laziness. By the time we reach Knightsbridge, the jolting of the coach over the stones has pleasantly deposited me in a creek between these two mountains of flesh; atmosphere at least six degrees above natural temperature, and now and then the air not over pure. In the opposite corner, on the right hand, sits a loquacious old woman, proceeding on a visit to her son, who has just married a Birmingham heiress in the brass line; her first expedition from Cockney land; never travelled farther before than Primrose Hill one way, and Richmond Park the other; fancies every motion of the coach an