'I am sorry you should be the victim.'

'Victim!' the postillion seized on an objectionable word. 'I ain't no
victim, unless you was up to a joke with me, sir, just now. Was that the
game?'

Evan informed him that he never played jokes with money, or on men.

'Cause it looks like it, sir, to go to offer a poor chap sixpence.' The
postillion laughed hollow from the end of his lungs. 'Sixpence for a
night's work! It is a joke, if you don't mean it for one. Why, do you
know, sir, I could go--there, I don't care where it is!--I could go before
any magistrate livin', and he'd make ye pay. It's a charge, as custom
is, and he'd make ye pay. Or p'rhaps you're a goin' on my generosity,
and 'll say, he gev back that sixpence! Well! I shouldn't a' thought a
gentleman'd make that his defence before a magistrate. But there, my
man! if it makes ye happy, keep it. But you take my advice, sir. When
you hires a chariot, see you've got the shiners. And don't you go never
again offerin' a sixpence to a poor man for a night's work. They don't
like it. It hurts their feelin's. Don't you forget that, sir. Lay that
up in your mind.'

Now the postillion having thus relieved himself, jeeringly asked
permission to smoke a pipe. To which Evan said, 'Pray, smoke, if it
pleases you.' And the postillion, hardly mollified, added, 'The baccy's
paid for,' and smoked.

As will sometimes happen, the feelings of the man who had spoken out and
behaved doubtfully, grew gentle and Christian, whereas those of the man