4 A Walk from 



prayers at home, and the few who know him speak well 

 of him, as a good and proper man in his way. But, 

 spurred and mounted upon the saddle of the great iron 

 hexiped, nearly all the passengers regard him as a part 

 of the beast. No one speaks to him, or thinks of him 

 on the journey. He may pull up at fifty stations, and 

 not a soul among the Firsts, Seconds, or even Thirds, will 

 offer him a glass of beer, or pipe-ful of tobacco, or give 

 him a sixpence at the end of the ride for extra speed or 

 care. His face is grimy, and greasy, and black. All 

 his motions are ambiguous and awkward to the casual 

 observer. He has none of the sedate and conscious 

 dignity of his predecessor on the old stage-coach box. 

 He handles no whip, like him, with easy grace. In- 

 deed, in putting up his great beast to its best speed, he 

 " hides his whip in the manger," according to a proverb 

 older than steam power. He wears no gloves in the 

 coldest weather ; not always a coat, and never a decent 

 one, at his work. He blows no cheery music out of a 

 brass bugle as he approaches a town, but pricks the 

 loins of the fiery beast, and makes him scream with a 

 sound between a human whistle and an alligator's croak. 

 He never pulls up abreast of the station-house door, in 

 the fashion of the old coach driver, to show off himself 

 and his leaders, but runs on several rods ahead of pas- 

 sengers and spectators, as if to be clear of them and their 



