most perfect _nonchalance_!

"You understand me? At _five_?--in the MORNING?" rejoined I, with
an emphasis sufficiently expressive of doubt.

"Yes, sir; five to a minute--two minutes later you'll lose your place."

This exceeded all my notions of human impudence. It was evident I had
here an extraordinary mine to work, so I determined upon digging into
it a few fathoms deeper.

"And would you, now, venture to _book_ a place for me?"

"Let you know directly, sir. (Hand down the Wonder Lunnun-book, there.)
When for, sir?"

I stood aghast at the fellow's coolness.--"To-morrow."

"Full outside, sir; just one place vacant, _in_."

The very word, "outside," bringing forcibly to my mind the idea of ten
or a dozen shivering creatures being induced, by any possible means,
to perch themselves on the top of a coach, on a dark, dull, dingy,
drizzling morning in January, confirmed me in my belief that the whole
affair was, what is vulgarly called, a "take-in."

"So you _will_ venture then to _book_ a place for me?"

"Yes, sir, if you please."

"And, perhaps, you will go so far as to receive half my fare?"

"If you please, sir--one-pound-two."

"Well, you are an extraordinary person! Perhaps, now--pray be
attentive--perhaps, now, you will carry on the thing so far as to
receive the whole?"

"If you please, sir--two-pound-four."

I paid him the money: observing at the same time, and in a tone
calculated to impress his imagination with a vivid picture of attorneys,
counsel, judge, and jury--"You shall hear from me again."

"If you please, sir; to-morrow morning, at five _punctual_--start
to a minute, sir--thank'ee, sir--good morning, sir." And this he uttered
without a blush.

"To what expedients," thought I, as I left the office, "will men resort,
for the purpose of injuring their neighbours. Here is one who exposes
himself to the consequences of an action at law, or, at least, to the
expense of sending me to town, in a chaise and four, at a reasonable
hour of the day; and all for so paltry an advantage as that of
preventing my paying a trifling sum to a rival proprietor--and on the
preposterous pretence, too, of sending me off at five in the morning!"

The first person I met was my friend Mark Norrington, and--Even now,
though months have since rolled over my head, I shudder at the
recollection of the agonies I suffered; when assured by him of the
frightful fact, that I had, really and truly, engaged myself to