ed; 'take it! You rides when
you can, and you walks when you must. Lord forbid I should rob such a
gentleman as you!'

One who feels a death, is for the hour lifted above the satire of
postillions. A good genius prompted Evan to avoid the silly squabble
that might have ensued and made him ridiculous. He took the money,
quietly saying, 'Thank you.'

Not to lose his vantage, the postillion, though a little staggered by
the move, rejoined: 'Don't mention it.'

Evan then said: 'Good night, my man. I won't wish, for your sake, that
we changed places. You would have to walk fifty miles to be in time for
your father's funeral. Good night.'

'You are it to look at!' was the postillion's comment, seeing my
gentleman depart with great strides. He did not speak offensively;
rather, it seemed, to appease his conscience for the original mistake he
had committed, for subsequently came, 'My oath on it, I don't get took
in again by a squash hat in a hurry!'

Unaware of the ban he had, by a sixpenny stamp, put upon an unoffending
class, Evan went ahead, hearing the wheels of the chariot still dragging
the road in his rear. The postillion was in a dissatisfied state of
mind. He had asked and received more than his due. But in the matter of
his sweet self, he had been choused, as he termed it. And my gentleman
had baffled him, he could not quite tell how; but he had been got the
better of; his sarcasms had not stuck, and returned to rankle in the
bosom of their author. As a Jew, therefore, may eye an erewhile bondsman
who has paid the bill, but stands out against excess of interest on
legal grounds, the postillion regarded Evan, of whom he was now abreast,
eager for a controversy.

'Fine night,' said the postillion, to begin, and was answered by a short
assent. 'Lateish for a poor man to be out--don't you think sir, eh?'

'I ought to think so,' said Evan, mastering the shrewd unpleasantness he
felt in the colloquy forced on him.

'Oh, you! you're a gentleman!' the postillion ejaculated.

'You see I have no money.'

'Feel it, too, sir.'

'I am sorry you should be the victim.'

'Victim!' the postillion seized on an objectionable word. 'I ain't no
victim, unless you was up to a joke with me, sir, just now. Was that the
game?'

Evan informed him that he never played jokes with money, or on men.

'Cause it looks like it, sir, to go to offer a poor chap sixpence.' The
postillion laughed hollow from the end of his lungs. 'Sixpe