OUR REPRESENTATIVE MAN. 257 



day who would talk aloud during the performance. But this 

 by the way.) 



You do not, perhaps, expect much from a Four-v/heeler, but, 

 hang it, you do from a Hansom. Hansoms now- a-days are 

 a snare and a delusion. They are calculated to ruin your 

 hat, and your temper. There is none good, no, scarcely one. 

 Like the "gods of the Heathen, they are all become abomin- 

 able. I had not intended writing this, but the edifice of in- 

 juries was crowned on my way to the International Exhibi- 

 bition, when I was going, last week, to represent you, Sir, at 

 the Cookery Lecture, and I can no longer control my just 

 indignation. 'Tis the last bluebottle that rouses the sleeping 

 Lion (I am getting up my Eastern proverbs for the Shah's 

 visit), and the Hansom that took me to South Kensington 

 caused me to shed tears of vexation. 



I selected him, from many others, with such care and dis- 

 crimination, as I should have used, at Tattersall's, in buying a 

 horse. I eyed his points — cab-horses have heaps of points, 

 all more or less prominent — and I took him after dismissing 

 three others who sought my favours. 



Let me tell you of one Hansom refused by me earlier in 

 the day. It came out of a stable-yard : the horse was bein^- 

 led by an ostler ; the driver (dressed in a Jemmy-Jessamy 

 sporting style, with a wisp of dark blue ribbon round his 

 whip, probably left there under the impression that the. Uni- 

 versity boat-race was still going on, as he'd been all this time 

 getting to it) was urging him by jerking the loose reins, and 

 making noises which were all more or less variations on such 

 original themes as " Tchk ! get along, Ky'up ! '' and so forth, 



