A. T. Quiller-Couch

“ I had just time to catch a glimpse of a figure huddled in the corner, and a sweet pretty girl with chestnut curls seated beside it, behind the glass. After the coach came a heavy broad-shoulder'd servant riding on a stout grey; who flung us a sharp glance as he went by, and at twenty yards' distance turn'd again to look.
“That's luck,” observed the pickpocket, as the travellers disappear'd down the highway: “Tomorrow, with a slice of it, I might be riding in such a coach as that, and have the hydropsy, to boot. Good lack! ”

“ Well, we sail'd three days and nights, and all the time there was a small sea-bird following, flying round and round us, and calling two notes that sounded for all the world like 'Wind'ard! Wind'ard!' So at last says Eli, ''Tis heaven's voice bidding us ply to wind'ard.' And so we did, and on the fourth day made Marseilles; and who should be first to meet Eli on the quay but a Frenchwoman he had married five years before, and left. And the jade had him clapp'd in the pillory, alongside of a cheating fishmonger with a collar of stinking smelts, that turn'd poor Eli's stomach completely. ”

“ This came near to putting me in a passion, but his face was serious. “'Tis a real pleasure,” he added heartily, “to look on one so gifted.”
“If any of you,” I said, “could sell me a horse——”
At once there was a clamour, all bidding in one breath for my custom. So finishing my breakfast, I walked out with them to the tavern yard, where I had my pick among the sorriest-looking dozen of nags in England, and finally bought from the red-haired man, for five pounds, bridle, saddle, and a flea-bitten grey that seem'd more honestly raw-boned than the rest. ”

“ So that as soon as my comrade was decently array'd at the first slop-shop we came to, 'twas high time to seek an inn. We found quarters at “The Horn,” and sought the travelers' room, and a fire to dry ourselves.
In this room, at the window, were two men who look'd lazily up at our entrance. They were playing at a game, which was no other than to race two snails up a pane of glass and wager which should prove the faster. ”

“ Only it was galling to be told so, as happened before I had gone three miles.
'Twas my friend the pickpocket: and he sat before a fire of dry sticks a little way back from the road. His scanty hair, stiff as a badger's, now stood upright around his batter'd cap, and he look'd at me over the bushes, with his hook'd nose thrust forward like a bird's beak.
“Bien lightmans, comrade—good day! 'Tis a good world; so stop and dine.”
I pull'd up my grey. ”

“ Last night my dripping duds helped me to a cant tale, and got me a silver penny from a man of religion. Good 's in the worst; and life's like hunting the squirrel—a man gets much good exercise thereat, but seldom what he hunts for. ”

“ I ask you not to brave Charybdis or Ætna, but to step out into the rainy yard and draw me a glass-full from the pump there: for our servant is abroad in the town.”
To my deep disgust, before I could find a word, that villainous old pickpocket had caught the glass from her hand and reach'd the door. But I ran after; and out into the yard we stepp'd together, where I pump'd while he held the glass to the spout, flinging away the contents time after time, till the bubbles on the brim, and the film on the outside, were to his liking. ”