He was one of those men who take everything in dead earnest; who regard
any expression of ideas outside their own sphere of life as trivial,
or, indeed, if addressed directly to them, as offensive; who, in fact,
are darkly suspicious of anything in the shape of a joke or laugh
on the part of an outsider in their own particular dust-hole. He seemed to be
always thinking, and thinking a lot; when his hands were not both engaged,
he would tilt his hat forward and scratch the base of his skull
with his little finger, and let his jaw hang. But his intellectual powers
were mostly concentrated on a doubtful swingle-tree, a misfitting collar,
or that there bay or piebald (on the off or near side) with the sore shoulder.

Casual letters or papers, to be delivered on the road,
were matters which troubled him vaguely, but constantly --
like the abstract ideas of his passengers.

The joker of our party was a humourist of the dry order, and had been
slyly taking rises out of the driver for the last two or three stages.
But the driver only brooded. He wasn't the one to tell you straight
if you offended him, or if he fancied you offended him,
and thus gain your respect, or prevent a misunderstanding
which would result in life-long enmity. He might meet you in after years
when you had forgotten all about your trespass -- if indeed
you had ever been conscious of it -- and "stoush" you unexpectedly on the ear.

Also you might regard him as your friend, on occasion,
and yet he would stand by and hear a perfect stranger tell you
the most outrageous lies, to your hurt, and know that the stranger
was telling lies, and never put you up to it. It would never enter his head
to do so. It wouldn't be any affair of his -- only an abstract question.