asking at all, I would.'

With that she went back to encounter Mr. Raikes and his charge, and prime
the waggoner and his mate.

A noise of laughter and talk was stilled gradually, as Evan made his bow
into a spacious room, wherein, as the tops of pines are seen swimming on
the morning mist, about a couple of dozen guests of divers conditions sat
partially revealed through wavy clouds of tobacco-smoke. By their
postures, which Evan's appearance by no means disconcerted, you read in a
glance men who had been at ease for so many hours that they had no
troubles in the world save the two ultimate perplexities of the British
Sybarite, whose bed of roses is harassed by the pair of problems: first,
what to do with his legs; secondly, how to imbibe liquor with the
slightest possible derangement of those members subordinate to his upper
structure. Of old the Sybarite complained. Not so our self-helpful
islanders. Since they could not, now that work was done and jollity the
game, take off their legs, they got away from them as far as they might,
in fashions original or imitative: some by thrusting them out at full
length; some by cramping them under their chairs: while some, taking
refuge in a mental effort, forgot them, a process to be recommended if it
did not involve occasional pangs of consciousness to the legs of their
neighbours. We see in our cousins West of the great water, who are said
to exaggerate our peculiarities, beings labouring under the same
difficulty, and intent on its solution. As to the second problem: that
of drinking without discomposure to the subservient limbs: the company
present worked out this republican principle ingeniously, but in a manner
beneath the attention of the Muse. Let Clio record that mugs and
glasses, tobacco and pipes, were strewn upon the table. But if the
guests had arrived at that stage when to reach the arm, or arrange the