ays are bearing us away to pleasure. Tootle, Jim,
my boy, tootle; the great Muchross is shouting derision at the poor
perspiring coster. "Pull up, you devil, pull up," he cries, and
shouts to the ragged urchins and scatters halfpence that they may
tumble once more in the dirt. See the great Muchross, the
clean-shaven face of the libertine priest, the small sardonic eyes.
Hurrah for the great Muchross! Long may he live, the singer of "What
cheer, Ria?" the type and epitome of the life whose outward signs are
drags, brandies-and-soda, and pale neckties.

Gaily trotted the four bays, and as Clapham was approached brick
tenements disappeared in Portland stone and iron railings. A girl was
seen swinging; the white flannels of tennis players passed to and
fro, and a lady stood by a tall vase watering red geraniums. Harding
told Mike that the shaven lawns and the greenhouses explained the
lives of the inhabitants, and represented their ideas; and Laura's
account of the money she had betted was followed by an anecdote
concerning a long ramble in a wood, with a man who had walked her
about all day without even so much as once asking her if she had a
mouth on her.

"Talking of mouths," said Mike, as they pulled up to change horses,
"we had to start without breakfast. I wonder if one could get a
biscuit and a glass of milk."

"Glass of milk!" screamed Muchross, "no milk allowed on this coach."

"Well, I don't think I could drink a brandy-and-soda at this time in
the morning."

"At what time could you drink one then? Why, it is nearly eleven
o'clock! What will you have, Kitty? A brandy?"

"No, I think I'll take a glass of beer."

The beauty of the landscape passed unperceived. But the road was full
of pleasing reminiscences. As they passed through Croydon dear old
Laura pointed out an hotel where she used to go every Sunday with the
dear Earl, and in the afternoons they played cribbage in the
sitting-room overlooking the street. And some miles further on the
sweetness of the past burst unanimously from all when Dicky pointed
out with his whip the house where Bessie had gone for her honeymoon,
and where they all used to spend from Saturday till Monday. The
incident of Bill Longside's death was pathetically alluded to. He had
died of D. T. "Impossible," said Laura, "to keep him from it. Milly,
poor little woman, had stuck to him almost to the last. He had had
his last drink there. Muchross and Dicky had carried him out."