1S79— 80.1 FIRST CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 301 



that Sunday should be as eagerly looked for by the Meltonian 

 as by the most fervid ritualistic maiden. Nor is it strange 

 that one of the subjects under discussion this week, together 

 Avitli tlie Turkish Crisis and Lord Carington's speech upon 

 Entailed Property, should have been the source from 

 whence good diachylon can be procured — that of the Melton 

 chemist's having been found inadequate to give the relief 

 required and enable the patient to pursue his dail}^ vocation in 

 comfort. 



The autumn hour of 4.30 on Wednesda}-, November 12th 

 found the main street of Melton clattering to returning hoofs 

 (we can hunt Avith less condition and make out the day with a 

 single horse up to Christmas) ; and in the dusk was pointed 

 out the closed shutter of the local tobacconist's shop. No one 

 la}' dead within ; nor had the Meltonians, eager to put by a 

 winter's consumption, emptied its contents so rapidly as to 

 bring the worthy man's business to a sudden standstill. No, 

 the}^ have put his walls of cigar boxes, his fences of briar roots 

 and white meerschaums, to quite a different purj)ose — they try 

 their hacks over them ! Dr. Johnson or Newton (it has been 

 ascribed to both, and to others besides) tenderly took his lady 

 love's finger and silently made it a baccy-stoj^per for his pipe, 

 in place of uttering the expected proposal. Tlie damsel could 

 hardly have been more surprised at the cool act of appropria- 

 tion than, under almost reversed conditions, was the proprietor 

 of the tobacco store — when, on Wednesday morning, crash 

 through the closed window came a Meltonian on his Avay to 

 covert. The chandelier volleyed across the shop ; pipes and 

 cigars flew in every dn-ection ; but the horse Avas unhurt, and 

 scarcely a curl of the rider's head Avas ruffled. No permission 

 have I to disclose the perpetrator of this Curtian leap. Were 

 there not Three Avho kept the bridge, in the brave days of old, 

 and one avIio ne\'er turned his head until tlie timbers crashed 

 behind him ? They gave him corn land that Avas of public 

 right, and they made a molten image in his honour. Should 



