THEFT. 107 



the hungry passengers were already seated at their 

 suppers. 



On counting the money this rascal had given me in 

 presence of an American gentleman, it was found that he 

 had not given me quite the amount of the third gold piece, 

 and my friend wished me again to demand it. I declined, 

 however, in that brief interval to have any further dis 

 turbance, but announced rny intention, when we arrived 

 at St Louis, to report the theft to the railway authorities, 

 and to demand the fellow's dismissal. We soon recom 

 menced our journey, and, without further let or hindrance, 

 in a cold and rainy morning, between three and four o' 

 clock, we descended from the carriages to a platform of a 

 station immediately on the banks of the Missouri, and 

 opposite to the town of St Louis, and there found several 

 omnibuses in waiting, with four horses in each, that an 

 Englishman might well have driven in his drag in Lon 

 don, and among them an omnibus, for which I had tele 

 graphed from Cincinnati, for the especial conveyance to 

 the town of myself, my servant, and my dogs, my lug 

 gage to be delivered in the usual way at the hotel called 

 the Planter's House. 



It was beautiful to see these four-in-hand omnibuses 

 drive into the ferry-boat ; but I take it that custom and 

 their own natural sagacity kept the handsome teams 

 steady and in the right way, for my spread-eagle friends 

 on the boxes, though they seemed to take a hard-fisted 

 aim at the places to which they desired to attain, seemed 

 to have as little analogy to that artist called "a good 

 coachman" as a costermonger behind a donkey has, 

 whose progression ceases when he lets go the thing he 

 calls a rein attached to the head of his enduring ass. 



Having crossed the river, into the hotel called the 



