Charles Dickens

“ Perhaps, gentlemen, as my uncle used to say with a smile, perhaps he was afraid of alarming the lady.
‘“Now, gentlemen,” said my uncle, taking his seat deliberately, “I don’t want to have any death, with or without lightning, in a lady’s presence, and we have had quite blood and thundering enough for one journey; so, if you please, we’ll sit in our places like quiet insides. Here, guard, pick up that gentleman’s carving–knife.”
‘As quickly as my uncle said the words, the guard appeared at the coach window, with the gentleman’s sword in his hand. ”

“ My uncle burned with indignation, gentlemen. As a commercial man, he felt that the mail–bags were not to be trifled with, and he resolved to memorialise the Post Office on the subject, the very instant he reached London.
‘At present, however, his thoughts were occupied with the young lady who sat in the farthest corner of the coach, with her face muffled closely in her hood; the gentleman with the sky–blue coat sitting opposite to her; the other man in the plum–coloured suit, by her side; and both watching her intently. ”

“ Now, in this piece of waste ground, there was, at that time, an enclosure belonging to some wheelwright who contracted with the Post Office for the purchase of old, worn–out mail coaches; and my uncle, being very fond of coaches, old, young, or middle–aged, all at once took it into his head to step out of his road for no other purpose than to peep between the palings at these mails—about a dozen of which he remembered to have seen, crowded together in a very forlorn and dismantled state, inside. My uncle was a very enthusiastic, emphatic sort of person, gentlemen ”

“ My uncle was rather disappointed, gentlemen, for he thought a little quiet bit of love–making would be agreeable after the slaughtering, if it were only to change the subject.
‘“We have not an instant to lose here,” said the young lady. “He (pointing to the young gentleman in sky–blue) is the only son of the powerful Marquess of Filletoville.” ‘“Well then, my dear, I’m afraid he’ll never come to the title,” said my uncle, looking coolly at the young gentleman as he stood fixed up against the wall, in the cockchafer fashion that I have described. ”

“ Excuse my dwelling on these melancholy recollections of departed worth; you won’t see a man like my uncle every day in the week.
‘I have always considered it a great point in my uncle’s character, gentlemen, that he was the intimate friend and companion of Tom Smart, of the great house of Bilson and Slum, Cateaton Street, City. My uncle collected for Tiggin and Welps, but for a long time he went pretty near the same journey as Tom; and the very first night they met, my uncle took a fancy for Tom, and Tom took a fancy for my uncle. ”

“ I have heard of a Glasgow man and a Dundee man drinking against each other for fifteen hours at a sitting. They were both suffocated, as nearly as could be ascertained, at the same moment, but with this trifling exception, gentlemen, they were not a bit the worse for it.
‘One night, within four–and–twenty hours of the time when he had settled to take shipping for London, my uncle supped at the house of a very old friend of his, a Bailie Mac something and four syllables after it, who lived in the old town of Edinburgh. ”

“ They made a bet of a new hat before they had known each other half an hour, who should brew the best quart of punch and drink it the quickest. My uncle was judged to have won the making, but Tom Smart beat him in the drinking by about half a salt–spoonful. They took another quart apiece to drink each other’s health in, and were staunch friends ever afterwards. There’s a destiny in these things, gentlemen; we can’t help it. ”

“ The lassies were pretty and agreeable; the bailie’s wife was one of the best creatures that ever lived; and my uncle was in thoroughly good cue. The consequence of which was, that the young ladies tittered and giggled, and the old lady laughed out loud, and the bailie and the other old fellows roared till they were red in the face, the whole mortal time. I don’t quite recollect how many tumblers of whiskey–toddy each man drank after supper ”

“ Large, broad–skirted laced coats, with great cuffs and no collars; and wigs, gentlemen—great formal wigs with a tie behind. My uncle could make nothing of it.
‘“Now, are you going to get in?” said the person who had addressed my uncle before. He was dressed as a mail guard, with a wig on his head and most enormous cuffs to his coat, and had a lantern in one hand, and a huge blunderbuss in the other, which he was going to stow away in his little arm–chest. “Are you going to get in, Jack Martin?” said the guard, holding the lantern to my uncle’s face. ”

“ Which coach?”
‘“This,” said the guard, pointing to an old–fashioned Edinburgh and London mail, which had the steps down and the door open. “Stop! Here are the other passengers. Let them get in first.”
‘As the guard spoke, there all at once appeared, right in front of my uncle, a young gentleman in a powdered wig, and a sky–blue coat trimmed with silver, made very full and broad in the skirts, which were lined with buckram. Tiggin and Welps were in the printed calico and waistcoat piece line, gentlemen, so my uncle knew all the materials at once. ”

“ A few oil lamps were scattered at long distances, but they only served to mark the dirty entrance to some narrow close, or to show where a common stair communicated, by steep and intricate windings, with the various flats above. ”

“ Two minutes hence may be too late. The mail!” With these words, overpowered by her feelings, and the exertion of sticking the young Marquess of Filletoville, she sank into my uncle’s arms. My uncle caught her up, and bore her to the house door. There stood the mail, with four long–tailed, flowing–maned, black horses, ready harnessed; but no coachman, no guard, no hostler even, at the horses’ heads.
‘Gentlemen, I hope I do no injustice to my uncle’s memory, when I express my opinion, that although he was a bachelor, he had held some ladies in his arms before this time ”