whenever an opportunity presented, they addressed a host of questions,
and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the whole world. Indeed, I
could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance
of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side, and had a large
bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the button-hole of his coat. He
is always a personage full of mighty care and business, but he is
particularly so during this season, having so many commissions to
execute in consequence of the great interchange of presents.

And here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable to my untravelled readers
to have a sketch that may serve as a general representation of this
very numerous and important class of functionaries who have a dress,
a manner, a language, an air, peculiar to themselves, and prevalent
throughout the fraternity; so that, wherever an English stage-coachman
may be seen, he cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or
mystery.

He has commonly a broad, full face, curiously mottled with red, as if
the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of the
skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt
liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity of
coats, in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the upper one reaching
to his heels. He wears a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat; a huge roll of
coloured handkerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in
at the bosom; and has in summer-time a large bouquet of flowers in his
buttonhole; the present, most probably, of some enamoured country
lass. His waistcoat is commonly of some bright colour, striped; and his
small-clothes extend far below the knees, to meet a pair of jockey boots
which reach about half-way up his legs.