CHAPTER X 



THE FINISH 



The Craft — One Good Turn — Another — Compensation — EaUroads — 

 Eastern Counties — Norfolk Farming — The Eccentrics — Strange 

 Company — A Tcte-a-tete — Publicola — A Constitutional Lawyer 

 — Stand-up Fight — Two Polished Gentlemen — Dilemma — 

 Celebrated Duellist — Bold Stroke — Lucky Escape — The Fall of 

 the Curtain. 



Having arrived at the last stage of this not very eventful, 

 and perhaps not very amusing narrative, it will not be 

 thought irrelevant if I take a slight view of my craft or 

 fraternity before it quite fell into almost utter oblivion. 

 I cannot, if I would, draw a correct portrait of any of my 

 most celebrated compeers any further than I have ever 

 done ; for I will at once admit I never felt myself suffi- 

 ciently competent to converse in a language the acquisi- 

 tion of which was considered a great accomplishment ; 

 and altoo'ether it was an association to which I no lonoer 

 coveted to belong. 



Nevertheless, there were some very respectable and very 

 worthy men among them ; men that were a credit to 

 their station, and upheld it both before and after the 

 profession had become a refuge for broken-down gentle- 

 men, or the summit of ambition to aspiring cads. For 

 competition had so disarranged or altered the original 

 system of conducting stage-coach business, that the titled 



