Blogs and book

It is a fine autumnal morning in the year 1837. I am sitting on the box
seat of a stage coach, in the yard of the Bull-and-Mouth, St.
Martin's-le-Grand, in the City of London. The splendid gray horses seem
anxious to be off, but their heads are held by careful grooms. The metal
fittings of the harness glitter in the early sunlight. Jew pedlar-boys
offer me razors and penknives at prices unheard of in the shops. Porters
bring carpet-bags and strange-looking packages of all sizes, and, to my
great inconvenience, keep lifting up the foot-board, to deposit them in
the "front boot." A solemn-looking man, whose nose is preternaturally
red, holds carefully a silver-mounted whip. Passengers arrive, and climb
to the roof of the coach, before and behind, until we are "full
outside." Then the guard comes with a list, carefully checks off all our
names, and retires to the booking office, from which a minute later he
returns. He is this time accompanied by the coachman, who is a handsome,
roguish-looking man.


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