rofessional
experience good-humouredly enough, proffered him his cigar-case, and
entered into a discussion on the near-leader's moral and physical
qualities. "I'll trouble you for a light, if you please," said I; he
turned round, we stuck the ends of our cigars together, and puffed into
each other's faces for about a minute, (my cigars were damp-ish,) as
grave as North American Indians. "Thank you," said I, as the interesting
ceremony was concluded, and our acquaintance begun. We got into
conversation, when it appeared that he, too, was bound for the
undiscovered shores of Glyndewi, and that we were therefore likely to be
companions for the next three months. He was an off-hand, good-humoured
fellow; drank brandy and water, treated the coachman, and professed an
acquaintance with bar-maids in general, and pretty ones in particular,
on our line of road. He was going up for a class, he supposed, he said;
the governor had taken a "second below the line" himself, and insisted
upon his emulating the paternal distinction; d----d nonsense, he said,
in his opinion; except that the governor had a couple of harriers with
Greek names, he did not see that his classics were of any use to him:
and no doubt but that Hylax and Phryne would run just as well if they
had been called Stormer and Merry Lass. However, he must rub up all his
old Eton books this 'long,' and get old Hanmer to lay it on thick. Such
was Mr Branling of Brazenose.

At Shrewsbury, we were saluted with the intelligence, "Coach dines here,
gentlemen." We found a couple of fowls that the coach might probably
have dined upon, and digested with other articles--in the hind boot; to
human stomachs they seemed impracticable. We employed the allotted ten
minutes upon a leg of mutton, and ascended again to our stations on the
roof: and here was an addition to our party. Externally, it consisted of
a mackintosh and a fur cap: in the very short interval between the
turned-down flap of the one and the turned-up collar of the other, were
a pair of grey-glass spectacles, and part of a nose. So far we had no
very sufficient premises from which to draw conclusions, whether or not
he were "one of us." But there were internal evidences; an odour of
Bouquet de Roi or some such villanous compound nearly overpowering the
fragrance of some genuine weed which I had supplied my pea-coated friend
with in the place of his Oxford "Havannahs"--a short cough occasionally,
as though the smoke of