were
five or six ladies. "Oh, wot elegant creatures," cried he, eyeing them;
"I could ride to Jerusalem with them without being tired; wot a thing it
is to be a bachelor!"

The Conducteur--with the usual frogged, tagged, embroidered jacket, and
fur-bound cap--having hoisted their luggage on high, the passengers who
had turned out of their respective compartments to stretch their legs
after their cramping from Calais, proceeded to resume their places.
There were only two seats vacant in the interior, or, as Mr. Jorrocks
called it, the "middle house," consequently the Yorkshireman and he
crossed legs. The other four passengers had corner-seats, things much
coveted by French travellers. On Mr. Stubbs's right sat an immense
Englishman, enveloped in a dark blue camlet cloak, fastened with bronze
lionhead clasps, a red neckcloth, and a shabby, napless, broad-brimmed,
brown hat. His face was large, round, and red, without an atom of
expression, and his little pig eyes twinkled over a sort of a mark that
denoted where his nose should have been; in short, his head was more
like a barber's wig block than anything else, and his outline would have
formed a model of the dome of St. Paul's. On the Yorkshireman's left
was a chattering young red-trousered dragoon, in a frock-coat and flat
foraging cap with a flying tassel. Mr. Jorrocks was more fortunate than
his friend, and rubbed sides with two women; one was English, either
an upper nursery-maid or an under governess, but who might be safely
trusted to travel by herself. She was dressed in a black beaver bonnet
lined with scarlet silk, a nankeen pelisse with a blue ribbon, and
pea-green boots, and she carried a sort of small fish-basket on her
knee, with a "plain Christian's prayer book" on the top. The other was
French, approaching to middle age, with a nice smart plump figure, good
hazel-coloured eyes, a beautiful foot and ankle, and very well dressed.
Indeed, her dress very materially reduced the appearance of her age,
and she was what the milliners would call remarkably well "got up." Her
bonnet was a pink satin, with a white blonde ruche surmounted by a rich
blonde veil, with a white rose placed elegantly on one side, and her
glossy auburn hair pressed down the sides of a milk-white forehead, in
the Madonna style.--Her pelisse was of "violet-des-bois" figured silk,
worn with a black velvet pelerine and a handsomely embroidered collar.
Her boots were of a colour to match the pel