upright
and perpendicular to the axletree instead of curving; and the leathern
belts connected with them, on which the carriage swung, were of the
thickest and toughest description. As the party, with the addition of Le
Roi, amounted to eight, Benson managed, by a little extra expenditure of
tin and trouble, to secure the whole of one vehicle, and for the still
greater accommodation of the ladies and child, the gentlemen were to sit
on the box two at a time by turns. Benson's first object was to get hold
of the reins, for which end he began immediately to talk around the
driver about things in general. From the price of horses they diverged
to the prospects of various kinds of business, and thence slap into the
politics of the country. The driver was a stubborn Locofoco, and Benson
did not disdain to enter into an elaborate argument with him. Ashburner,
who then occupied the other box-seat, was astonished at the man's
statistical knowledge, the variety of information he possessed upon
local topics, and his accurate acquaintance with the government and
institutions of his country. It occurred to him to prompt Benson,
through the convenient medium of French, to sound him about England and
European politics. This Harry did, not immediately, lest he might
suspect the purport of their conversational interlude, but by a
dexterous approach to the point after sufficient preliminary; and it
then appeared that he had lumped "the despotic powers of the old world"
in a heap together, and supposed the Queen of England to be on a par
with the Czar of Russia as regarded her personal authority and
privileges. However, when Benson set him right as to the difference
between a limited and an absolute monarchy, he took the information in
very good part, listened to it attentively, and evidently made a mental
note of it for future reference.

The four-horse team was a good strong one, but the stage with its load
heavy enough, and the roads, after the recent storm, still heavier,
besides being a succession of hills. The best they could do was to make
six miles an hour, and they would not have made three but for a method
of travelling down-hill, entirely foreign to European ideas on the
subject. When they arrived at the summit there was no talk of putting on
the drag, nor any drag to put on, but away the horses went, first at a
rapid trot, and soon at full gallop; by which means the equipage
acquired sufficient momentum to carry it part of th