to a minute, sir--thank'ee, sir--good morning, sir." And this he uttered
without a blush.

"To what expedients," thought I, as I left the office, "will men resort,
for the purpose of injuring their neighbours. Here is one who exposes
himself to the consequences of an action at law, or, at least, to the
expense of sending me to town, in a chaise and four, at a reasonable
hour of the day; and all for so paltry an advantage as that of
preventing my paying a trifling sum to a rival proprietor--and on the
preposterous pretence, too, of sending me off at five in the morning!"

The first person I met was my friend Mark Norrington, and--Even now,
though months have since rolled over my head, I shudder at the
recollection of the agonies I suffered; when assured by him of the
frightful fact, that I had, really and truly, engaged myself to travel
in a coach, which, really and truly, did start at five in the morning.
But as the novel-writers of the good old Minerva school used, in similar
cases, to say, "in pity to my sympathising reader's feelings, I must
draw the mysterious veil of concealment over my, oh! too acute
sufferings!" These, I must own, were, in no little degree, aggravated by
the manner of my friend. Mark, as a sort of foil to his many excellent
qualities, has one terrible failing: it is a knack of laughing at one's
misfortunes; or, to use his own palliating phrase, he has a habit of
looking at the ridiculous side of things. Ridiculous! Heavens! as if any
one possessing a spark of humanity could perceive anything to excite his
mirth in the circumstance of a fellow-creature's being forced out of his
bed at such an hour! After exhibiting many contortions of the mouth,
produced by a decent desire to maintain a gravity suitable to the
occasion, he, at length, burst into a loud laugh; and exclaiming (with a
want of feeling I shall never entirely forget) "Well, I wish you joy of