er the circumstances, rather agreeable to him to see the

common people dispersed before his horses, and often barely

escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he were

charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of the man

brought no check into the face, or to the lips, of the master. The

complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf

city and dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without footways,

the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered and

maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But few cared

enough for that to think of it a second time, and, in this matter, as

in all others, the common wretches were left to get out of their

difficulties as they could.

With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of

consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage

dashed though the streets and swept round corners, with women

screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching

children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a

fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there

was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and

plunged.

But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would

not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and

leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened

valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the

ho