234 DRIVING. 



made a peculiar noise, and I was afraid to open it ; but the 

 dogs there were half a dozen kept there had scooped the 

 ground out under, and through their private entrance I crept. 

 Fourpenny bits, called Joeys after Joseph Hume, had just been 

 invented ; I had one of these in my pocket, the only coin I 

 possessed. It was one of the bitterest, cold, foggy November 

 mornings possible, and I had no greatcoat, and one glove. I 

 knew where the Wonder put up close to Mutton, the pastry- 

 cook's. As I turned into the yard the horses were being put 

 to. I saw Capps, whom I knew, and told him, with perfect truth, 

 that my father had the gout and I was going up to him. Like 

 a young idiot, instead of getting inside or into the front boot, 

 I must swagger and go on the box. There were but three 

 outside passengers. At prayers I was not missed ; but the 

 Doctor afterwards remembered his promise, and said, ' Now 

 I will give that young gentleman an appetite for breakfast ' 

 but I was not to be found. The son of the pedagogue, who was 

 then home for a few days from Cambridge, got on to the Doctor's 

 favourite horse and rode into the town, and a stupid porter 

 told him that a little boy had gone on the box of the Wonder. 

 Upon hearing this off went the Cambridge undergraduate, 

 and performed the very extraordinary feat of catching the coach, 

 though it had got a full hour's start. At Crawley, being so 

 lightly clad, and having had nothing to eat since milk and bread 

 and butter at six the night before, I was so cold I had got 

 inside the coach. Just before we got to Horley, tAventy-seyen 

 and a half miles from Brighton and five from Crawley, my pur- 

 suer overtook the coach and called upon Capps to pull up, but 

 this he would not do, whereupon the undergraduate rode across 

 the leaders, being nearly knocked over. Though his horse was 

 dead beat, he followed the coach till it stopped to change at 

 Horley; there a great palaver took place, and Capps was all for 

 "sticking to me, but at last reluctantly gave way, and I was delivered 

 up. Some tea and some rashers of bacon and eggs were quickly 

 put on the table, and we set off back to Brighton with a postboy, 

 ride and drive, in an old Bounder, as postchaises were then called, 



