collected, from such explanations as he volunteered, that he had an
interest at stake in some suit-at-law now pending at Lancaster; so that
probably he had got himself transferred to this station for the purpose
of connecting with his professional pursuits an instant readiness for
the calls of his lawsuit.

Meantime, what are we stopping for? Surely we have now waited long
enough. Oh, this procrastinating mail, and this procrastinating post-
office! Can't they take a lesson upon that subject from _me_? Some
people have called _me_ procrastinating. Yet you are witness,
reader, that I was here kept waiting for the post-office. Will the
post-office lay its hand on its heart, in its moments of sobriety, and
assert that ever it waited for me? What are they about? The guard tells
me that there is a large extra accumulation of foreign mails this
night, owing to irregularities caused by war, by wind, by weather, in
the packet service, which as yet does not benefit at all by steam. For
an _extra_ hour, it seems, the post-office has been engaged in
threshing out the pure wheaten correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing
it from the chaff of all baser intermediate towns. But at last all is
finished. Sound your horn, guard! Manchester, good-bye! we've lost an
hour by your criminal conduct at the post-office: which, however,
though I do not mean to part with a serviceable ground of complaint,
and one which really _is_ such for the horses, to me secretly is an
advantage, since it compels us to look sharply for this lost hour
amongst the next eight or nine, and to recover it (if we can) at the
rate of one mile extra per hour. Off we are at last, and at eleven
miles an hour; and for the moment I detect no changes in the energy or
in the skill of Cyclops.

From Manchester to Kendal, which virtually (though not in law) is the