132 PROPOSITION. 



end of this said coach, of which my new 

 friend was part proprietor. 



I had not much time to consider 

 their proposition, after retiring to rest; 

 for the length of the ride and the 

 goodness of the entertainment caused me 

 to sleep very soundly. Waking early in 

 the morning, I recalled the overnight's 

 conversation, and, after some little deli- 

 beration, resolved to profit by it as soon 

 as occasion would permit. 



I had been offered a situation as a com- 

 mercial traveller in a large wine-house in 

 London ; but having known some of these 

 gentlemen, and observed how their habits 

 tended to a short, though to them per- 

 haps a pleasant life, I hung, as it were, 

 in the balance more particularly as the 

 man I was to succeed was then in the 

 last stage of diseased liver and lungs, at 

 something considerably under forty years 

 of age. 



