erved the hostess. 'Pray, don't ask me to stand by and back it, that's
all.'

Had Evan been familiar with the Green Dragon, he would have noticed that
the landlady, its presiding genius, was stiffer than usual; the rosy
smile was more constrained, as if a great host had to be embraced, and
were trying it to the utmost stretch. There was, however, no asperity
about her, and when she had led him to the door he was to enter to prefer
his suit, and she had asked whether the young woman was quite common, and
he had replied that he had picked her up on the road, and that she was
certainly poor, the hostess said:

'I 'm sure you're a very good gentleman, sir, and if I could spare your
asking at all, I would.'

With that she went back to encounter Mr. Raikes and his charge, and prime
the waggoner and his mate.

A noise of laughter and talk was stilled gradually, as Evan made his bow
into a spacious room, wherein, as the tops of pines are seen swimming on
the morning mist, about a couple of dozen guests of divers conditions sat
partially revealed through wavy clouds of tobacco-smoke. By their
postures, which Evan's appearance by no means disconcerted, you read in a
glance men who had been at ease for so many hours that they had no
troubles in the world save the two ultimate perplexities of the British
Sybarite, whose bed of roses is harassed by the pair of problems: first,
what to do with his legs; secondly, how to imbibe liquor with the
slightest possible derangement of those members subordinate to his upper
structure. Of old the Sybarite complained. Not so our self-helpful
islanders. Since they could not, now that work was done and jollity the
game, take off their legs, they got away from them as far as they might,
in fashions original or imitative: some by thrusting them out at full
length; some by cramping them under their chairs: while some, taking
refuge in a mental effort, forgot them, a process to be recommended if it
did not involve occasional pangs of consciousness to the legs of their
neighbours. We see in our cousins West of the great water, who are said
to exaggerate our peculiarities, beings labouring under the same
difficulty, and intent on its solution. As to the second problem: that of
drinking without discomposure to the subservient limbs: the company
present worked out this republican principle ingeniously, but in a manner
beneath the attention of the Muse. Let Clio record that mugs and glasses,
tobacco an