THE YORK ROAD 281 



In the fulness of time we arrive at the George and 

 Blue Boar, Holborn. On his legal fare being tendered 

 to the hackney coachman, he throws -down his hat and 

 offers to fight us for five shillings. We decline the 

 stirring invitation and hurry into the inn yard. All here 

 is bustle and animation in a sort of half gloom. 



The Stamford Regent stands ready for her flight ; four 

 chestnuts with a good deal of blood about them seem 

 anxious to be off; ostlers making noises after the 

 manner of engines letting off steam in underground 

 stations, are giving the finishing touches to the toilet. 

 Afar off in a dim doorway the celebrated Tom Hennesy 

 draws on his gloves, and says sweet nothings to a pretty 

 housemaid, with her black hair out of curl. Ostlers are 

 thrusting luggage into the boot.. The boot seems to 

 have an insatiable appetite for luggage. It swallows 

 everything that is thrown at it, and makes no sign. 

 The two inside passengers now appear upon the scene. 

 One of them is an Anglo-Indian, who has whiskers 

 brushed as if by a whirlwind, a voice like a bull, and a 

 complexion in harmony with his surroundings. A sort 

 of Jos Sedley going to York. The other is a lady of 

 uncertain age, who wears her hair in curl papers, and 

 pretends to a rooted antipathy to travelling alone with a 

 man. This antipathy she communicates to the guard in 

 a faded whisper. The guard grinning all over his face 

 communicates this faded whisper to the Bengal Civil 

 Servant. He receives it with matutinal curses. 



" Confound it, sir," he roars, 'then let her ride out- 

 side." 



With which he hurls himself into the coach. From 

 this point of vantage he shakes his fist at a wretched 

 native in a turban, who, safely out of distance, salaams 

 till his head almost touches the coach court-yard, and 

 confesses that he has indeed omitted to provide the 

 Sahib with his umbrella. 



While a terrific volley of objurgations in Bengalese 

 pours from one door of the coach, the lady with the faded 



