92 JACK HALES WIFE 



" N^o," I replied, " how should I ? But you do. Who 

 is she ? " 



" Jack Hale's wife," he said, naming a well-known 

 Oxford dragsman. 



^' Nonsense ! " I exclaimed ; " I was at his house in 

 London not long ago, and when I drove the ' Crown 

 Prince,' we had some talk about exchanging. I then saw 

 his wife, a very different person from this — indeed quite 

 the opposite." 



Now, this man had attained as great a notoriety, as a 

 professional, as my friend Monops, as much for being a 

 first-rate workman as for a dashing devil-me-care sort of 

 bearing, that caused him to be a great favourite on the 

 road, indeed quite a pet with the amateurs, and an idol 

 with the undergraduates. 



Jack was a smart-looking fellow when young, and, by 

 means that it would be in vain for me to attempt to 

 describe, had made sad inroads in the affections of the 

 females who officiated at the houses where he dailv took 

 his refreshment ; and it was one of these, it proved after- 

 wards, I had taken for Mrs. H , indeed she really was 



so, although the one I had been introduced to by Monops 

 had a prior claim on the hand and heart of this Lothario. 



A day or two afterwards, on my following journey 

 down, I was induced from curiosity to ask the lady if 

 what I had heard from our friend was true. She replied 

 in the affirmative ; and, upon further inquiry, I found 

 that, being the daughter of respectable parents, she had 

 been sent to a boarding-school, where the sight of that 

 fascinating object, a stage-coach, had more charms for 

 her than the usual routine of female study ; and, from 



