AN AMERICANS HISTORY. 75 



&quot; I ll tell you his story, as far as I know it,* and what I 

 don t know I can guess at. 



&quot; He was an ostler once, then a lawyer s boy, then a school 

 master, then studied law and began to practice ; then he spec 

 ulated, made a fortune, and lost the greater part of it in a 

 year ; then he bought out a line of stage-coaches that were run 

 over a mountain, and which was about to be given up because 

 a railroad running around the mountains had been completed. 

 He put the fares down, and works them in opposition to the 

 railroad ; and, as it is a tight match, he drives one coach him 

 self, fifteen miles a-day, and back six horses in hand ; and I 

 have seen them going down the mountain as hard as they 

 could run, while he held his reins in one hand, not tauter than 

 yours are now, and his cigar in the other, and called out to 

 them, one after another, by name, to look out for themselves 

 or they ll break their necks, as if they had been a squad of 

 school children.&quot; 



&quot; Good God !&quot; breathed the coachman. 



&quot; He is, withal, a church elder, and Super, Grand, Past 

 Superior, Most Venerable Senior Patriarch of the Independent 

 Order of X. Y. Z., and a variety of other things.&quot; 



The coachman whistled. 



&quot; But the lady, sir, of this gentleman I should like to hear 

 more of her,&quot; asked my other companion. 



&quot; She is rather older than her husband and, having had to 

 work pretty hard all her life, has not had time to keep up 

 with him, so she has the good sense to stay in the background 

 a good deal ; but his daughter, who is a beauty, accomplished, 



* There is some fiction in what follows, necessarily introduced to 

 enable me to give truthfully what I recollect of the actual conversation. 

 I know more than one stage-driver who has had a seat in a State Legisla 

 ture, and filled it with honour to himself and satisfaction to his constituents, 

 In its important points, the narrative I have given ia true. 



