“No, my dear Mr George; no.”

“And you mean to say you’re going to give me a lift to this place, wherever it is, without charging for it?” Mr George inquires, getting his hat, and thick wash-leather gloves.

This pleasantry so tickles Mr Smallweed, that he laughs, long and low, before the fire. But ever while he laughs, he glances over his paralytic shoulder at Mr George, and eagerly watches him as he unlocks the padlock of a homely cupboard at the distant end of the gallery, looks here and there upon the higher shelves, and ultimately takes something out with a rustling of paper, folds it, and puts it in his breast. Then Judy pokes Mr Smallweed once, and Mr Smallweed pokes Judy once.

“I am ready,” says the trooper, coming back. “Phil, you can carry this old gentleman to his coach, and make nothing of him.”

“O dear me! O Lord! Stop a moment!” says Mr Smallweed. “He’s so very prompt! Are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy man?”

Phil makes no reply; but seizing the chair and its load sidles away, tightly hugged by the now speechless Mr Smallweed, and bolts along the passage, as if he had an acceptable commission to carry the old gentleman to the nearest volcano. His shorter trust, however, terminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the fair Judy takes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the roof, and Mr George takes the vacant place upon the box.

Mr George is quite confounded by the spectacle he beholds from time to time as he peeps into the cab, through the window behind him; where the grim Judy is always motionless, and the old gentleman with his cap over one eye is always sliding off the seat into the straw, and looking upward at him, out of his other eye, with a helpless expression of being jolted in the back.


  By PanEris using Melati.

Previous chapter/page Back Home Email this Search Discuss Bookmark Next chapter
Copyright: All texts on Bibliomania are © Bibliomania.com Ltd, and may not be reproduced in any form without our written permission. See our FAQ for more details.