are to journey in it!

"Who are the happy souls about to travel thus enjoy-ably?" thought I, as
I saw the waiter and the courier discussing the most convenient spot to
deposit a small hamper with eatables for the road; and then I heard the
landlady's voice call out:

"Take up the bill to No. 8."

So, then, this was No. 8 who was fast getting ready to depart,--No. 8
who had interposed in my favor the evening before, and towards whom a
night's rest and some reflection had modified my feelings and changed my
sentiments very remarkably.

"Will you ask the gentleman at No. 8 if I may be permitted to speak with
him?" said I to the man who took in the bill.

"He 'll scarcely see you now,--he's just going off."

"Give the message as I speak it," said I; and he disappeared.

There was a long interval before he issued forth again, and when he did
so he was flurried and excited. Some overcharges had been taken off
and some bad money in change to be replaced by honest coin, and it was
evident that various little well-intended rogueries had not achieved
their usual success.

"Go in, you 'll find him there," said the waiter, insolently, as he went
down to have the bill rectified.

I knocked, a full round voice cried, "Come in!" and I entered.

CHAPTER XXXV. HART CROFTON'S COMMISSION

"Well, what next? Have you bethought you of anything more to charge me
with?" cried a large full man, whose angry look and manner showed how he
resented these cheatings.

I staggered back sick and faint, for the individual before me was
Crofton, my kind host of long ago in Ireland, and from whose hospitable
roof I had taken such an unceremonious departure.

"Who are you?" cried he, again. "I had hoped to have paid everything and
everybody. Who are you?"

Wishing to retire unrecognized, I stammered out something very
unintelligibly indeed about my gratitude, and my hope for a pleasant
journey to him, retreating all the while towards the door.

"It's all very well to wish the traveller a pleasant journey," said
he, "but you innkeepers ought to bear in mind that no man's journey is
rendered more agreeable by roguery. This house is somewhat dearer than
the 'Clarendon' in London, or the 'Hotel du Rhin' at Paris. Now, there
might be, perhaps, some pretext to make a man pay smartly who travels
post, and has two or three servants with him, but what excuse can you
make for charging some poor devil of a foot traveller, taking his humble
me