re--Swashbuckler--The grand coaches--The
footmen--A travelling expedition--Black Jack--Nelson's cannon--Pharaoh's
butler--A diligence--Two passengers--Sharking priest--Virgilio--Lessons
in Italian--Two opinions--Holy Mary--Priestly confederates--Methodist
chapel--Veturini--Some of our party--Like a sepulchre--All for
themselves.

'I am a poor postilion, as you see; yet, as I have seen a thing or two
and heard a thing or two of what is going on in the world, perhaps what I
have to tell you connected with myself may not prove altogether
uninteresting. Now, my friends, this manner of opening a story is what
the man who taught rhetoric would call a hex--hex--'

'Exordium,' said I.

'Just so,' said the postilion; 'I treated you to a per--per--peroration
some time ago, so that I have contrived to put the cart before the horse,
as the Irish orators frequently do in the honourable House, in whose
speeches, especially those who have taken lessons in rhetoric, the
per--per--what's the word?--frequently goes before the exordium.

'I was born in the neighbouring county; my father was land-steward to a
squire of about a thousand a year. My father had two sons, of whom I am
the youngest by some years. My elder brother was of a spirited roving
disposition, and for fear that he should turn out what is generally
termed ungain, my father determined to send him to sea: so once upon a
time, when my brother was about fifteen, he took him to the great seaport
of the county, where he apprenticed him to a captain of one of the ships
which trade to the high Barbary coast. Fine ships they were, I have
heard say, more than thirty in number, and all belonging to a wonderful
great gentleman, who had once been a parish boy, but had contrived to
make an immense fortune by trading to that coast for gold-dust, ivory,
and other strange articles; and for doing so, I mean for making a
fortune, had been made a knight baronet. So my brother went to the high
Barbary shore, on board the fine vessel, and in about a year returned and
came to visit us; he repeated the voyage several times, always coming to
see his parents on his return. Strange stories he used to tell us of
what he had been witness to on the high Barbary coast, both off shore and
on. He said that the fine vessel in which he sailed was nothing better
than a painted hell; that the captain was a veritable fiend, whose grand
delight was in tormenting his men, especially when they were sick