"Halloa, master!" shouted the smith, looking after him. "You're not
to be trusted on the box until you can handle your whip better'n
that."

"What's that?" cried the driver, pulling up his team.

"I bid you have a care, master, or there will be some one-eyed folk
along the road you drive."

"Oh, you say that, do you?" said the driver, putting his whip into
its socket and pulling off his driving-gloves. "I'll have a little
talk with you, my fine fellow."

The sporting gentlemen of those days were very fine boxers for the
most part, for it was the mode to take a course of Mendoza, just as
a few years afterwards there was no man about town who had not had
the mufflers on with Jackson. Knowing their own prowess, they never
refused the chance of a wayside adventure, and it was seldom indeed
that the bargee or the navigator had much to boast of after a young
blood had taken off his coat to him.

This one swung himself off the box-seat with the alacrity of a man
who has no doubts about the upshot of the quarrel, and after hanging
his caped coat upon the swingle-bar, he daintily turned up the
ruffled cuffs of his white cambric shirt.

"I'll pay you for your advice, my man," said he.

I am sure that the men upon the coach knew who the burly smith was,
and looked upon it as a prime joke to see their companion walk into