I seized the note--I flew up stairs-- Flung-to the door, and locked me in-- With panting haste I tore the seal-- And kissed the B in Benjamin!
’Twas full of love--to rhyme with dove-- And all that tender sort of thing-- Of sweet and meet--and heart and dart-- But not a word about a ring!
In doubt I cast it in the flame, And stood to watch the latest spark-- And saw the love all end in smoke-- Without a Parson and a Clerk!
“Read! it’s very easy to say read.”--THE BURGOMASTER.
“I have trusted to a reed.”--OLD PROVERB.
“Hoy!--Cotch!--Co-ach!--Coachy!--Coachee--hullo!--holloo!--woh!--wo-hoay!--wough-hoaeiouy!”--for the last cry was a waterman’s, and went all through the vowels.
The Portsmouth Rocket pulled up, and a middle-aged, domestic-looking woman, just handsome enough for a plain cook at an ordinary, was deposited on the dicky; two trunks, three bandboxes, a bundle, and a hand-basket, were stowed in the hind boot. “This is where I’m to go to,” she said to the guard, putting into his hand a slip of paper. The guard took the paper, looked hard at it, right side upwards, then upside down, and then he looked at the back; he in the mean time seemed to examine the consistency of the fabric between his finger and thumb; he approached it to his nose as if to smell out its meaning; I even thought that he was going to try the sense of it by tasting, when by a sudden jerk, he gave the label with its direction to the winds, and snatching up his key-bugle began to play “Oh where, and oh where,” with all his breath.
I defy the metaphysicians to explain by what vehicle I travelled to the conclusion that the guard could not read, but I felt as morally sure of it as if I had examined him in his a--b--ab. It was a prejudice not very liberal; but yet it clung to me, and fancy persisted in sticking a dunce’s cap on his head. Shakspeare says that “he who runs may read,” and I had seen him run a good shilling’s worth after an umbrella that dropped from the coach; it was a presumptuous opinion therefore to form, but I formed it notwithstanding--that he was a perfect stranger to all those booking-offices where the clerks are schoolmasters. Morally speaking, I had no earthly right to clap an ideal Saracen’s Head on his shoulders; but, for the life of me, I could not persuade myself that he had more to do with literature than the Blue Boar.